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This quote from Genova’s (Still alice. Pocket Books, 2009) novel Still Alice describes the moment in which Alice, a high-achieving professor of linguistics, is told she has early onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the novel, the diagnosis forms a distinct and significant moment, a focal point in the narrative arch of Alice’s character that dramatically alters her sense of self and her view of the future. Alice experiences the diagnosis as a breaking apart of space and time: she is momentarily detached from her own body, unable to connect her thoughts and feelings to her physical being. Alice’s response reflects the transformative power of diagnosis, as well as providing a metaphor for the disease itself, detaching Alice from her previous self. The symbolic power of being placed into a diagnosed category shapes meanings of self, identity and embodiment, sense of place and belonging as well as social relationships (Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Simon & Schuster, 1963; Charmaz, Loss of self: A fundamental form of suffering in the chronically ill. Sociology of Health & Illness, 5(2), 168–195, 1983; Kleinman, The illness narratives: Suffering. Healing and the human condition. Basic Books, 1988; Hubbard et al., Disrupted lives and threats to identity: The experiences of people with colorectal cancer within the first year following diagnosis. Health, 14(2), 131–146, 2010). This transformation can be as powerful as to split apart a person’s life into before and after diagnosis (Bury, Chronic illness as biographical disruption. Sociology of Health & Illness, 4(2), 167–182, 1982; Fleischmann, I am…, I have…, I suffer from…: A linguist reflects on the language of illness and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 77(2), 127–132, 1999). The transformative power of the diagnostic act is described by Genova as a visceral, powerful and distinct moment. However, this point of rupture, an immediate and observable moment, while symbolic of the powerful force that a diagnosis can carry, also obscures the socially contingent nature with which diagnoses are constructed and the wider politics that shape the continually shifting boundaries of disease categories.

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Targeting Dementia: An Introduction

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Alexandra Hillman

摘要

This quote from Genova’s (Still alice. Pocket Books, 2009) novel Still Alice describes the moment in which Alice, a high-achieving professor of linguistics, is told she has early onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the novel, the diagnosis forms a distinct and significant moment, a focal point in the narrative arch of Alice’s character that dramatically alters her sense of self and her view of the future. Alice experiences the diagnosis as a breaking apart of space and time: she is momentarily detached from her own body, unable to connect her thoughts and feelings to her physical being. Alice’s response reflects the transformative power of diagnosis, as well as providing a metaphor for the disease itself, detaching Alice from her previous self. The symbolic power of being placed into a diagnosed category shapes meanings of self, identity and embodiment, sense of place and belonging as well as social relationships (Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Simon & Schuster, 1963; Charmaz, Loss of self: A fundamental form of suffering in the chronically ill. Sociology of Health & Illness, 5(2), 168–195, 1983; Kleinman, The illness narratives: Suffering. Healing and the human condition. Basic Books, 1988; Hubbard et al., Disrupted lives and threats to identity: The experiences of people with colorectal cancer within the first year following diagnosis. Health, 14(2), 131–146, 2010). This transformation can be as powerful as to split apart a person’s life into before and after diagnosis (Bury, Chronic illness as biographical disruption. Sociology of Health & Illness, 4(2), 167–182, 1982; Fleischmann, I am…, I have…, I suffer from…: A linguist reflects on the language of illness and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 77(2), 127–132, 1999). The transformative power of the diagnostic act is described by Genova as a visceral, powerful and distinct moment. However, this point of rupture, an immediate and observable moment, while symbolic of the powerful force that a diagnosis can carry, also obscures the socially contingent nature with which diagnoses are constructed and the wider politics that shape the continually shifting boundaries of disease categories.