ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how we can help the self who is ill. I am an academic General Practitioner – a generalist physician and a researcher committed to the critical development, delivery and evaluation of whole person medical care. Through my experiences from research and practice, I have described an account of the Creative Self – the self who responds to the experience of illness. I start my chapter by outlining this account and the work to develop it, before discussing the implications for practice. I consider the work I am doing with colleagues to describe how we can deliver self-focused care in everyday practice. I conclude with the words of Fred Kent (2005) – ‘if you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic’ – suggesting that if we design health services for disease, we get disease. Perhaps if we could redesign health services for the self, we might achieve healthy selves.
