In the narrative of every human life and family, illness is a prominent character. Even if we have avoided serious illness ourselves, we cannot escape its reach into our circle of family and friends. Illness brings us closer to one another through caregiving and separates us through disability and death, yet little attention has been paid to personal and family illness in psychotherapy. Rather, therapists tend to focus on the psychosocial realm, leaving the biological realm to other physicians and nurses. Susan H. McDaniel, Jeri Hepworth, and William J. Doherty invited therapists who work with individuals and families experiencing chronic illness and disability to describe clinical cases that illustrate their approach to medical family therapy. Contributors then were asked to share a personal story about their experiences with illness, and to explain how those experiences affect the way they work with their clients. Vivid case studies dealing with a range of illnesses, including cancer infertility, schizophrenia, AIDS, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and multiple sclerosis, show how the therapists' own experiences of illness are relevant to their care of others-and how these experiences can be used to form a healing bond in therapy. Poignant, honest, and illuminating, The Shared Experience of Illness allows us to understand more fully the relationship between the personal and the professional.

In the narrative of every human life and family, illness is a prominent character. Even if we have avoided serious illness ourselves, we cannot escape its reach into our circle of family and friends. Illness brings us closer to one another through caregiving and separates us through disability and death, yet little attention has been paid to personal and family illness in psychotherapy. Rather, therapists tend to focus on the psychosocial realm, leaving the biological realm to other physicians and nurses. Susan H. McDaniel, Jeri Hepworth, and William J. Doherty invited therapists who work with individuals and families experiencing chronic illness and disability to describe clinical cases that illustrate their approach to medical family therapy. Contributors then were asked to share a personal story about their experiences with illness, and to explain how those experiences affect the way they work with their clients. Vivid case studies dealing with a range of illnesses, including cancer infertility, schizophrenia, AIDS, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and multiple sclerosis, show how the therapists' own experiences of illness are relevant to their care of others-and how these experiences can be used to form a healing bond in therapy. Poignant, honest, and illuminating, The Shared Experience of Illness allows us to understand more fully the relationship between the personal and the professional.

Couples and families face daunting challenges as they cope with serious illness and disability. This book gives clinicians a roadmap for helping affected individuals and their loved ones live well with a wide range of child, adult, and later-life conditions. John S. Rolland describes ways to intervene with emerging challenges over the course of long-term or life-threatening disorders. Using vivid case examples, he illustrates how clinicians can help families harness their strengths for positive adaptation and relational growth. Rolland's integrated systemic approach is useful for preventive screening, consultations, brief counseling, more intensive therapy, and multifamily groups, across health care settings and disciplines. This book significantly advances the clinical utility of Rolland?s earlier landmark volume, Families, Illness, and Disability.

The Life of Shabkar has long been recognized by Tibetans as one of the masterworks of their religious heritage. Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol devoted himself to many years of meditation in solitary retreat after his inspired youth and early training in the province of Amdo under the guidance of several extraordinary Buddhist masters. With determination and courage, he mastered the highest and most esoteric practices of the Tibetan tradition of the Great Perfection. He then wandered far and wide over the Himalayan region expressing his realization. Shabkar's autobiography vividly reflects the values and visionary imagery of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the social and cultural life of early nineteenth-century Tibet.

An examination of “digital coping” involving the use of communication technologies, particularly social media, in responding to illness. Communication technologies have become a valuable resource for responding to the profound challenges posed by illness. Medical websites make it possible to find information about specific health conditions, e-mail provides a means to communicate with health care providers, social network sites can be used to solidify existing relationships, online communities provide opportunities for expanding support networks, and blogs offer a forum for articulating illness-related experiences. In this book, Stephen Rains examines this kind of “digital coping” involving the use of communication technologies, particularly social media, in responding to illness. Synthesizing a diverse body of existing empirical research, Rains offers the first book-length exploration of what it means to cope with illness digitally. Rains examines the implications of digital communication technologies on a series of specific challenges raised by illness and discusses the unique affordances of these technologies as coping resources. He considers patients' motivations for forging relationships online and the structure of those networks; the exchange of social support and the outcomes of sharing illness experiences; online health information searches by patients and surrogates; the effects of Internet use on patient-provider communication; and digital coping mechanisms for end-of-life and bereavement, including telehospice, social media memorials, and online grief support. Finally, Rains presents an original model of digital coping that builds on issues discussed to summarize how and with what effects patients use communication technologies to cope with illness.

This thorough update of a classic text describes the impact of recent economic and structural changes in health care on the role of the medical family therapist, and how medical and mental health providers can learn to collaborate in various settings.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year: “Unforgettable . . . Few have told such a compelling life-story as skillfully” (San Francisco Chronicle). In the summer of 1992, on the eve of an American tour, singer/songwriter Ben Watt, one half of the Billboard-topping pop duo Everything But The Girl, was taken to a London hospital complaining of chest pain. As his condition worsened, doctors were baffled. He was eventually he was diagnosed with a rare life-threatening autoimmune disease called Churg-Strauss Syndrome. “To paraphrase Joseph Heller,” Ben says, “you know it’s something serious when they name it after two guys.” By the time he came home, two-and-half-months later, his ravaged body was forty-six pounds lighter, and he was missing most of his small intestine. “Unfold[ing] like a page-turning mystery” (The Los Angeles Times), and “told with great wit and without self-pity, Patient is a sobering look at how life can suddenly be transformed into a humbling vaudeville of tests, IV’s, catheters, and bedpans” (The New York Times Book Review). Injecting a frankness and natural humility into his “funny, frightening, and piercingly vulnerable” (Interview) chronicle of a medical nightmare, Ben writes about his childhood, reflects on family, and his shared life with band member and partner, Tracey Thorn. The result is “a vivid, finely wrought look at having one’s future yanked away, and surviving physically and emotionally” (Dallas Morning Star-Telegram). A Sunday Times Book of the Year A Village Voice Favorite Book of the Year An Esquire (UK) Best Non-Fiction Award Finalist