Good Days, Bad Days - by Kathy Charmaz (Paperback)

About the Book

Millions of American suffer chronic illness, but what is life really like when you are chronically ill? Drawing on skillfully conducted in-depth interviews, Kathy Charmaz takes a fresh look at the experiences of people with serious chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, lupus, emphysema, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis.

Book Synopsis

Kathy Charmaz has written a compelling book on chronic illness and the effect it has on the self-concepts of those who suffer. It will appeal to anyone facing a long-term problem that seems beyond control. Her work is based on interviews with people suffering from such diseases as cancer, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis, and with their caregivers. Charmaz looks at how these people disclose their illness, how they experience their emotions, and how they manage daily life.

Illness provides a mirror that allows sufferers to see themselves and to become more introspective. As they struggle for control over illness and control over time, they also struggle to control the central images of the self. For example, the chronically ill may situate their self-concepts in the past, present, or future. Charmaz examines under what conditions they situate their self-concepts in each of those timeframes. People may say they live one day at a time. They may bracket certain experiences, such as a heart attack, as timemarkers or turning points in the past. Or they may look ahead to recovering their health. Or ahead to death.

Charmaz artfully combines near jargon-free analysis with moving stories about how people have experienced illness, usually told in the sufferers' own words. She enters the world of the chronically ill, and brings us into it.

Review Quotes

A very moving work. It does a marvelous job of allowing the reader to get 'inside' the experience of chronic illness.--Lyn H. Lofland, "University of California, Davis"

Charmaz transcends the basic issues involved in chronic illness to disclose linkages between one's sense of identity and one's construction of time, which have implications well beyond the realm of health and illness.-- "Contemporary Sociology"

This is an outstanding work. [It] brilliantly conveys an unsurpassable depth of understanding and feeling about the chronically ill.--Norman K. Denzin "University of Illinois, Urbana"

About the Author

KATHY CHARMAZ is professor and chair of the department of sociology at Sonoma State University. She is the author of The Social Reality of Death.