PART ONE: CONSTRUCTING HEALTH AND ILLNESS THROUGH LANGUAGE
Health Psychology and Qualitative Research
Social Realms and the Qualities of Illness Experience
Understanding Embodied Experience
The Storied Nature of Health and Illness
Discourse, Health and Illness
Making Sense of Illness Experiences
Feminist Approaches to Qualitative Health Research

PART TWO: CONVERSING ABOUT HEALTH AND ILLNESS
Interviewing the Ill and the Healthy
Talking to Children about Health and Illness
Qualitative Research in the Field of Death and Dying
Cross-Cultural Research in Health Psychology

PART THREE: TRANSFORMING TALK INTO TEXT
Using Grounded Theory in Health Psychology
Action Research
Doing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
Shaping Health Psychology
Qualitative Research, Evaluation and Representation

This book explains the role of qualitative research within health psychology. Theories and methods from a qualitative perspective are highly varied but, in general, differ from the positivist approach which is concerned with quantifying the individual risk factors presumed to cause health and illness behaviour. This book shows clearly how a qualitative approach offers a better understanding of the experience of illness while locating it in its broader social context.