Creating chronicity

An authentic sickness history is the vantage point for juxtaposing a biomedical and a biographical-phenomenological reading. What, in a biomedical framework, appears to be a longstanding state of comorbidity of different and unrelated types of diseases is rendered transparent in a biographical reading. This particular reading, evidencing the shortcomings of a biomedical framework regarding identifying the social sources of an increasingly complex burden of disease, is reflected upon in light of recent research in the neurosciences. Thus, the biomedical contribution to a sickness history is demonstrated, with its resultant multimorbidity, chronification, and complete incapacitation of a woman despite the continuing and nearly excessive involvement of the health care system.