ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1964, Norman Cousins, the former editor of the Saturday Review, was diagnosed as having ankylosing spondylitis, a collogen disease leading to disintegration of the connective tissue in the spine. Upon being told by his doctor that a leading specialist gave him “one chance in five hundred” of recovering, Cousins (1979) decided it was about time he took an active interest in his own case: “All this gave me a great deal to think about. Up to that time I had been more or less disposed to let the doctors worry about my condition. But now I felt a compulsion to get into the act. It seemed clear to me that if I was to be that one in five hundred I had better be something more than a passive observer [p. 35].” Cousins (1979) details how he developed his own treatment regimen, formed a partnership with his physician, and ultimately was freed from this crippling, degenerative disease.
