Volume 27, Number 5 · April 3, 1980
How Psychosomatic Is Your Illness?
By Charles Rycroft
Social Causes of Illness
by Richard Totman
Pantheon, 263 pp., $10.00
The first, and perhaps the most important, thing to be said about this book is that its title is misleading. Social Causes of Illness is not about whether social habits, customs, conditions, or structures cause illnesses—or whether social changes are reflected in changes in the incidence of illnesses. It is about the theoretical and epistemological implications of the fact that many physical illnesses seem to occur shortly after a significant event in the patient's life, particularly after one which has changed his style of life. 'Recently,' Dr. Totman writes,
Review, 2535 words
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