Emotional Aspects of Heart Disease: A Personal Narrative
- 1 September 1978
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine
- Vol. 8 (3) , 225-233
- https://doi.org/10.2190/ytmj-bq5q-6rw4-cy3d
Abstract
It is not particularly profound to note that one's choice of a professional career is related to unconscious motivational forces, and that a desire to become a physician may stem from a wish to conquer one's own illness and the inevitability of death. Once one becomes a physician his personal experience with illness may, but not by means necessarily, place him in the position of being empathetic with the sick patient. My purpose in this particular narrative is to review my experience with a life-long illness and to relate it to my longstanding psychiatric interest and work with patients with chronic disease. I trust the confessional quality will be instructive and not taken as maudlin or pseudo-Proustian.Keywords
This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
- Pascal's Wager and the Hanging of CrepeNew England Journal of Medicine, 1975
- The psychology of chronic illnessJournal of Chronic Diseases, 1972
- The Psychology of Physical Illness as Portrayed in Thomas Mann's The Magic MountainArchives of internal medicine (1960), 1971
- Psychological Reactions to Cardiac Operations: An Historical PerspectivePsychiatry in Medicine, 1970
- ADAPTATION TO OPEN HEART SURGERY: A PSYCHIATRIC STUDY OF RESPONSE TO THE THREAT OF DEATHAmerican Journal of Psychiatry, 1965
- "Voodoo" DeathPsychosomatic Medicine, 1957