ABSTRACT
The meanings of meaning-full disease are those that actually predispose us to illness, that contribute powerfully to the onset of illness, and that play an important role in keeping illness going. They are both personal and shared meanings and stories that play a pivotal role in the emergence of physical disease. The notion of disease rooted in personal meaning does not make sense to people imbued with the typical Western mind-set. Meaning-full diseases in real patients is the springboard for all the discussions presented in this chapter. For most health professionals, physical disease is attributable to some misfortune of genetics, biochemistry, infection, toxicity, mutation, impact of lifestyle (unhealthy eating habits, lack of exercise etc.), and, as already mentioned, 'stress.' It is unfair to categorize all modern physicians as completely closed to the relevance of meaning in disease.
