A trend can be seen in contemporary psychiatry toward reducing the subjective experience of illness to neurophysiological findings. Research by Bill Fulford and Georges Canguilhem goes against this trend. Fulford holds that illness comes before disease, while Canguilhem defends the idea that illness precedes disease. They both hold to the inseparability of facts and values. They emphasize the socio-symbolic dimension of subjective experience, thus stressing the importance of clinical approaches for dealing with human suffering.
Philosophy of medicine; psychiatry; Fulford; Canguilhem