Giving voice to the lifeworld. More humane, more effective medical care? A qualitative study of doctor–patient communication in general practice CHRISTINE A . BARRY , FIONA A . STEVENSON ,

The voice of the lifeworld refers to the patient’s contextually-grounded experiences of events and problems in her life. These are reports and descriptions of the world of everyday life expressed from the perspective of a ‘natural attitude’. The timing of events and their significance are dependent on the patient’s biographical situation and position in the social world. In contrast, the voice of medicine reflects a technical interest and expresses a ‘scientific attitude’. The meaning of events is provided through abstract rules that serve to decontextualise events, to remove them from particular personal and social contexts.