Listening to Illness/Nonillness Motifs: A Case of Fibromyalgia.

In the psychotherapeutic process, a physically ill/disabled patient generally uses words that describe medicine, biology, medical treatment, pain, drugs, and hospitalization: This is the language of "illness," which is a universal language of medicine. The patient uses also words that describe thoughts, emotions, behaviors, relationships, intra-, and interties. This is the language of "non illness," which is the unique language of subjectivity. Psychotherapy can help patients only by ways of subjectivity, that is, using the patient's words. The words of the patient shift back and forth from medical data, which is a universal medical language of the patient (illness) to a particular subjective language of the patient (nonillness). A case example demonstrates this differentiation work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]