ABSTRACT
Responses to illness can only be helpful if the meanings of symptoms are understood. Meanings derive primarily from beliefs, which are viewed here as the dispositions that a person values, whether or not they are contradictory. The importance of personal meanings in illness is dramatically confirmed by the efficacy of placebos, which Daniel Moerman calls the meaning effect. One source of meanings flows from explanations. Medical objectivism claims to be the only legitimate way of explaining symptoms. However, psychology, sociology and medicine are complementary modes of explanation which all view a symptom as a sign – either an index or a symbol – of some mechanism. Explanation is contrasted in this chapter with interpretation, which concerns meanings that make the quality of illness experience more understandable without seeking to explain it. Interpretation transcends the boundary that medicine sets up between real and non-real illness, since the meanings of symptoms can be seen as legitimate whatever their explanation might be. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the risks as well as the benefits of viewing illness as meaningful.
