Accounts of health and illness: Dilemmas and representations

Author(s): Billig, M.

Journal/Book: Sociol Health Ill. 1996; 18: 108 Cowley Rd, Oxford, Oxon, England OX4 1JF. Blackwell Publ Ltd. 220-240.

Abstract: This paper argues that people's views of health and illness are best understood as accounts that they give to others. In that sense, such beliefs are neither the expression of fixed inner attitudes, nor evidence for shared social representations. Instead, we emphasise the importance of seeing health talk as both ideological and dilemmatic. The paper explores the way in which individuals who speak of health (or illness) in general must also give an account of their health in particular. Reviewing the distinction between 'private' and 'public' accounts, the article discusses the various rhetorical devices by which this is achieved. This shows how people's talk about health both defines their social fitness and exemplifies their claims to being ill or healthy.

Note: Article A Radley, Loughborough Univ Technol, Dept Social Sci, Loughborough LE11 3TU, Leics, England

Keyword(s): accounts; health beliefs; ideology; social representations; CAUSATION

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