Paul Victoria
Department of Design, Media and Educational Science, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark.
Med Health Care Philos. 2025 Jun;28(2):177-184. doi: 10.1007/s11019-025-10260-z. Epub 2025 Mar 17.
Laurie A. Paul (2014) developed the concept of transformative experience. In describing transformative experience as an experience that is both epistemically and personally transformative, she argues that transformative experience challenges the traditional model of rational decision making. Her concept of transformative experiences has been expanded to the field of illness. It has been argued that illness is a transformative experience because it fulfills Paul's criteria for a transformative experience (Carel et al. 2016; Carel and Kidd 2020). Conceptualizing illness as a transformative experience would have far-reaching implications for the agency and for the rational decision-making process of ill persons. In considering these implications, this article questions the assumption that illness is a transformative experience and proposes that illness, especially when it is chronic, can be a transformative activity, in the sense that Agnes Callard (2020), introduced us to the concept of transformative activity. The article argues that conceptualizing (chronic) illness as a transformative activity strengthens the ill person's agency and ability to learn to live with the illness.
劳里·A·保罗(2014年)提出了转变性经历的概念。在将转变性经历描述为一种在认知和个人层面都具有转变性的经历时,她认为转变性经历挑战了传统的理性决策模式。她的转变性经历概念已扩展到疾病领域。有人认为疾病是一种转变性经历,因为它符合保罗对转变性经历的标准(卡雷尔等人,2016年;卡雷尔和基德,2020年)。将疾病概念化为一种转变性经历会对患病者的能动性和理性决策过程产生深远影响。在考虑这些影响时,本文质疑疾病是一种转变性经历这一假设,并提出疾病,尤其是慢性病,可以是一种转变性活动,正如阿格尼斯·卡勒德(2020年)向我们介绍的转变性活动概念那样。本文认为将(慢性)疾病概念化为一种转变性活动会增强患病者的能动性以及学会与疾病共处的能力。