Western health care systems are based on a biomedical understanding that often overlooks and even excludes patients subjectivity, everyday experiences, social conditions and the external environment.

This narrow understanding breeds a practice entailing adverse consequences for disease processes and outcomes, - consequences which we are only beginning to understand.

There is a pressing need to rethink the concepts of 'disease' and 'treatment' and to develop research forms which incorporate the societal contexts of disease phenomena. This book is trying to do so by looking at:

- Disease patterns viewed in an eco-historical light
- Modern medicine as pervaded by illusions concerning its superiority
- The health care system as a self-referential disease system
- Mechanisms behind the mind/body interaction
- The sociological discourse of the body
- The social construction of diagnosis
- Understanding everyday life with stroke
- The meaning of accidents
- Employees' strain disorders and user participation in prevention and research the role of food in hospitals
- Close encounter between provider and patient in body work
- Critique of the random clinical trial
- The need for revision of medical research designs