ABSTRACT
The book starts with a parallel between medical efficiency and the predominance of technology over life. Human beings – dual entities comprising patient and doctor – are at risk of surrendering most of their individual freedom to technology. The high degree of specialization, combined with the effectiveness of therapeutic procedures, causes a cognitive split whereby the patient can become a passive receptacle of the technological apparatus. The predominance of science over nature is accompanied by a reduced ability to identify with it. The consumer society normalizes the repression of natural death, and when that idea re-emerges in the form of illness, it endeavours to eliminate it. Failure to deal with the subjective experience, with the unconscious aim of denying death and disease, contributes to an inherent waste in healthcare potentially accounting for a significant share of total expenditure. There is therefore a need to integrate new elements, such as a tolerance of uncertainty and vulnerability in doctors’ approach to patients. The author takes the view that his own exposure as a doctor to the humanistic paradigm of analysis helped to widen his horizons, in contrast to the increasingly normative tendencies of technological positivism.
