How Can We Understand the Life of Illness? (original) (raw)

Abstract

I could not theorize myself out of the pain and the hope, the life of illness. I stand in illness in my research before God, one of the world in pain and hope. I want to live in understanding. I want to learn how one ought to live through illness, even through the grief of pain. (pp. iv, v)1 Carol Olson's dissertation is one of awe, beauty, and mystery. One is struck by the artistry with which such a profound ques tion as "How can we understand the life of ifiness?" is answered. By blending a hermeneutic-phenomenological ap proach using self-disclosed dialogue with ifiness and literary works of art, Olson arrives at understanding. Olson's under standing is a living through the answer, that is, knowledge of how we ought to live. In living through the answer, Olson is not, as Gadamer (Outhwaite, 1985) stressed, forgetting her own horizon of meaning, she is merging and fusing her own horizon with others in the process of the research. The re search begins with the question, "How can we understand the life of illness?" and ends with mystery. This review of the dissertation takes the form of a presentation of the research framework and synopsis of the text, a discus sion of the emergence of themes, and an illumination of mean ing. Research Framework The research framework for the study consists of many dimen sions-self-questioning and dialoguing with illness, a her meneutic-phenomenological investigation of literary works using interviewing and text interpretation, and reflection and writing. The phenomenological sense is both language and thoughtfulness to the phenomenon (lived experience), to what shows itself (van Manen, 1984, p. 41). Olson's work is an enlightening journey. Although she claims that her research began with the concerns of the life of illness as experienced through the literary works of art, the first four