Controlling the Uncontrollable: Making Sense of Living with P.D.

Abstract

As we have seen in Chapters 3 and 5, patients sought to reduce uncertainty by controlling the pace of assimilating what to expect of the illness, and by developing some expertise in handling the medication. Crucially, patients also tried to control the uncertainties—and the inner disquiet which accompanied them—of the illness experience itself, in ways very different from those described by the GPs in the previous chapter. Moreover, as argued previously, the uncertainties themselves were different. Again these differences had important implications for the patient-GP relationship.