ABSTRACT
Representations can embody enormous power. For Paul, that power was encased in a gold medal. Other representations might reside in official statements such as, ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife!’ or, ‘Guilty as charged!’ Medical terminology can be especially consequential, as it was for Jeff who ‘trembled’ at the words of his diagnosis.a Jeff describes the immense power of the label handed him that he had long successfully evaded. Five years into treatment, still Jeff had no recall of having ever been directly told:
My mother was told, and my wife was told. And even some of my friends were told. And I learned
about what I had through them; in kind of roundabout ways. But in all those years no explanation about what it was ever came from a medical person. They never actually sat down and talked to me about my diagnosis.
