This work provides a phenomenological account of the experience of illness and the manner in which meaning is constituted by the patient and the physician. The author provides a detailed account of the way in which illness and body are apprehended differently by doctor and patient. This title has been awarded the first Edwin Goodwin Ballard Prize in Phenomenology.

Introduction: A Phenomenological Approach. One: The Separate Worlds of Physician and Patient. 1. Own World. 2. Common World. 3. Different Perspectives of Physician and Patient. 4. Implications for Medical Practice. Two: Illness. 1. Levels of Constitution of Meaning. 2. The Patient's Apprehension of Illness. 3. The Physician's Apprehension of the Patient's Illness. 4. Implications for Medical Practice. Three: The Body. 1. The Lived Body. 2. Body as Object. 3. Lived Body in Illness. 4. Body as Object in Illness. 5. The Body-as-Scientific-Object. 6. Implications for Medical Practice. Four: The Healing Relationship. 1. Illness-as-Lived. 2. Empathic Understanding. 3. Clinical Narrative. 4. The Healing Relationship. Bibliography. Index.