Analyzing the visual culture of public health from the nineteenth century to the present.

Medical imaging technologies can help diagnose and monitor patients' diseases, but they do not capture the lived experience of illness. In this volume, Devan Stahl shares her story of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis with the aid of magnetic resonance images (MRIs). Although clinically useful, Stahl did not want these images to be the primary way she or anyone else understood her disease or what it is like to live with MS. With the help of her printmaker sister, Darian Goldin Stahl, they were able to reframe these images into works of art. The result is an altogether different image of the ill body. Now, the Stahls open up their project to four additional scholars to help shed light on the meaning of illness and the impact medical imaging can have on our cultural imagination. Using their insights from the medical humanities, literature, visual culture, philosophy, and theology, the scholars in this volume advance the discourse of the ill body, adding interpretations and insights from their disciplinary fields.

This book focuses on the centrality of illness—particularly psychosomatic illness—as an imaginative construct in Victorian culture. It shows how illness shaped the terms through which people perceived relationships between body and mind, self and other, private and public, and how Victorians tried to understand and control their world through a process of physiological and pathological definition.

A neurologist explores the very real world of psychosomatic illness. Most of us accept the way our heart flutters when we set eyes on the one we secretly admire, or the sweat on our brow as we start the presentation we do not want to give. But few of us are fully aware of how dramatic our body's reactions to emotions can sometimes be. Take Pauline, who first became ill when she was fifteen. What seemed at first to be a urinary infection became joint pain, then food intolerances, then life-threatening appendicitis. And then one day, after a routine operation, Pauline lost all the strength in her legs. Shortly after that her convulsions started. But Pauline's tests are normal; her symptoms seem to have no physical cause whatsoever. Pauline may be an extreme case, but she is by no means alone. As many as a third of men and women visiting their GP have symptoms that are medically unexplained. In most, an emotional root is suspected and yet, when it comes to a diagnosis, this is the very last thing we want to hear, and the last thing doctors want to say. In It's All in Your Head consultant neurologist Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan takes us on a journey through the very real world of psychosomatic illness. She takes us from the extreme -- from paralysis, seizures and blindness -- to more everyday problems such as tiredness and pain. Meeting her patients, she encourages us to look deep inside the human condition. There we find the secrets we are all capable of keeping from ourselves, and our age-old failure to credit the intimate and extraordinary connection between mind and body.

Medical imaging technologies can help diagnose and monitor patients’ diseases, but they do not capture the lived experience of illness. In this volume, Devan Stahl shares her story of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis with the aid of magnetic resonance images (MRIs). Although clinically useful, Stahl did not want these images to be the primary way she or anyone else understood her disease or what it is like to live with MS. With the help of her printmaker sister, Darian Goldin Stahl, they were able to reframe these images into works of art. The result is an altogether different image of the ill body. Now, the Stahls open up their project to four additional scholars to help shed light on the meaning of illness and the impact medical imaging can have on our cultural imagination. Using their insights from the medical humanities, literature, visual culture, philosophy, and theology, the scholars in this volume advance the discourse of the ill body, adding interpretations and insights from their disciplinary fields.

Throughout human history illness has been socially interpreted before its range of meanings could be understood and disseminated. Writers of diverse types have been as active in constructing these meanings as doctors, yet it is only recently that literary traditions have been recognized as a rich archive for these interpretations. These essays focus on the methodological hurdles encountered in retrieving these interpretations, called 'framing' by the authors. Framing and Imagining Disease in Cultural History aims to explain what has been said about these interpretations and to compare their value.

"Imagining Robert" is the most honest book to date on the lives of the millions of families that must cope, day by day and year by year, over the course of a lifetime, with a condition for which, in most cases, there is no cure. By rendering his brother's mental illness in all its complexity and mystery, Jay Neugeboren has shown how even the grimmest of lives can be sustained by the power of love

Don’t let your thoughts and fears define you. In Overcoming Harm OCD, psychotherapist Jon Hershfield offers powerful cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness tools to help you break free from the pain and self-doubt caused by harm OCD. Do you suffer from violent, unwanted thoughts and a crippling fear of harming others? Are you afraid to seek treatment for fear of being judged? If so, you may have harm OCD—an anxiety disorder associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). First and foremost, you need to know that these thoughts do not define you as a human being. But they can cause a lot of real emotional pain. So, how can you overcome harm OCD and start living a better life? Written by an expert in treating harm OCD, this much-needed book offers a direct and comprehensive explanation of what harm OCD is and how to manage it. You’ll learn why you have unwanted thoughts, how to identify mental compulsions, and find an overview of cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based treatment approaches that can help you reclaim your life. You’ll also find tips for disclosing violent obsessions, finding adequate professional help, and working with loved ones to address harm OCD systemically. And finally, you’ll learn that your thoughts are just thoughts, and that they don’t make you a bad person. If you have harm OCD, it’s time to move past the stigma and start focusing on solutions. This evidence-based guide will help light the way.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers two programs that provide disability benefits: the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. SSDI provides disability benefits to people (under the full retirement age) who are no longer able to work because of a disabling medical condition. SSI provides income assistance for disabled, blind, and aged people who have limited income and resources regardless of their prior participation in the labor force. Both programs share a common disability determination process administered by SSA and state agencies as well as a common definition of disability for adults: "the inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months." Disabled workers might receive either SSDI benefits or SSI payments, or both, depending on their recent work history and current income and assets. Disabled workers might also receive benefits from other public programs such as workers' compensation, which insures against work-related illness or injuries occurring on the job, but those other programs have their own definitions and eligibility criteria. Selected Health Conditions and Likelihood of Improvement with Treatment identifies and defines the professionally accepted, standard measurements of outcomes improvement for medical conditions. This report also identifies specific, long-lasting medical conditions for adults in the categories of mental health disorders, cancers, and musculoskeletal disorders. Specifically, these conditions are disabling for a length of time, but typically don't result in permanently disabling limitations; are responsive to treatment; and after a specific length of time of treatment, improve to the point at which the conditions are no longer disabling.