Diagnosis Narratives and the Healing Ritual in Western Medicine

James P. Meza is Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Science at Wayne State University School of Medicine, USA. He holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and is a practising doctor of medicine (MD).

Part I: Methods
1. Fieldwork methods
2. The theoretical frame

Part II: The diagnosis narratives
3. Entrance into the field
4. Who is narrating and what story are they telling?
5. Spatial cognitions
6. The doctor tells the diagnostic story to the patient
7. Joint attention to the diagnostic narrative
8. Spatial therapy

Part III: Ritual healing in Western medicine
9. Ritual theory
10. Disease as an existential threat
11. Qualifications of a leech
12. Healing relationships
13. When the healing ritual fails

Part IV: The body politic
14. The business of medicine
15. Overdiagnosis and overtreatment
Part V: Narrative studies on healing reconsidered
16. Narrative healing reconsidered
17. Theoretical synthesis
18. Reflections of a healer

Appendix A: Individual patient narratives
Appendix B: Doctors talk about work
Appendix C: Codebook and themes