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Existential Health Psychology

The Blind-spot in Healthcare

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Patrick M. Whitehead

    1. Sociology and Psychology, Albany State University, Albany, USA

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. Introduction: The Blind-spot in Medicine

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 1-12

  3. A History of Medical Care

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 13-23

  4. Reality and Medicine

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 25-37

  5. Existence and Health

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 39-52

  6. Medicalization

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 53-62

  7. Existential Health Psychology

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 63-73

  8. Adequately Human: Methods for Health Science

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 75-88

  9. Post-Concussion Syndrome: An Exemplar

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 89-97

  10. Conclusion: Caring for the Human Being—An Outline for Applied Existential Health Psychology

    • Patrick M. Whitehead
    Pages 99-109

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 111-117
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Keywords

About this book

This volume critiques the increasingly reductive, objectifying, and technologized orientation in mainstream biomedicine. Drawing on the methods of hermeneutic phenomenology and existential analysis in the work of Martin Heidegger, Kurt Goldstein, Medard Boss, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author seeks to expose this lacuna and explore the ways in which it misrepresents (or misunderstands) the human condition. Whitehead begins by examining the core distinction in the sociology of medicine between “disease” and “illness” and how this distinction maps onto a more fundamental distinction between the corporeal/objective body and the experiential/lived body. Ultimately, the book exposes the tendency in modern medicine to medicalize the human condition and forwards a reorientation framed by what the author terms “existential health psychology.”

Authors and Affiliations

  • Sociology and Psychology, Albany State University, Albany, USA

    Patrick M. Whitehead

About the author

Patrick M. Whitehead, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Albany State University, USA

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