ABSTRACT
A conventional response to the question of why illness stories are important is that they can inform clinical practice; attention to stories makes better doctors. Many ill people find they cannot live the story, or just the story, that biomedicine tells of their illnesses; the need for a voice of one's own is a particularity of our times. The physician and sociologist Howard Waitzkin has provided an insightful and innovative application of Louis Althusser's concept of ideology to medical practice. Illness stories work differently in the lives of hearers and tellers because 'now' is different. And central to the present context of illness stories is, unavoidably, the practice of medicine. To retell enacted stories is to increase the risk of imposing a professional interpretation on the action of the storyteller. Illness stories matter because they enhance the self-consciousness of the ill and aid them in developing their distinctive community.
