Editing Illness as Metaphor (section)

==Synopsis==
''Illness as Metaphor'' served as a way for Susan Sontag to express her opinions on the use of metaphors in order to refer to illnesses, with her main focuses being tuberculosis and cancer. The book contrasts the viewpoints and metaphors associated with each disease.  At one point, [[tuberculosis]] was seen as a [[Creativity and mental health|creative disease]], leading to healthy people wanting to look as if they were ill with the disease. However, lack of improvement from tuberculosis was usually seen as lack of [[Passion (emotion)|passion]] in the individual. Tuberculosis was even seen as a [[Divine punishment|sign of punishment]] by some religions, such as [[Christianity]], leading the afflicted to believe that they deserved their ailment.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.enotes.com/topics/illness-metaphor|title=Illness as Metaphor Summary - eNotes.com|website=eNotes|language=en|access-date=2018-03-08}}</ref>

Sontag then made the comparison between the metaphors used to describe tuberculosis and cancer, with cancer being seen in the 1970s as a disease that afflicted people who lacked passion and sensuality, and those who repressed their feelings. Sontag wrote that multiple studies found a link between depression and cancer, which she argued was just a sign of the times and not a reason for the disease, since in previous times physicians found that cancer patients suffered from [[hyperactivity]] and [[Hyperesthesia|hypersensitivity]], which were signs of their times.<ref name=":0" />

In the last chapter, Sontag argued that society's disease metaphors cause patients to feel as if society were against them. Her final argument was that metaphors are not useful for patients, since metaphors make patients feel as if their illness was due to their feelings, rather than lack of effective treatment.<ref name=":0" /> The most effective way of thinking about illness would be to avoid metaphorical thinking, and to focus on only the physical components and treatment.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/782|title=Illness as Metaphor|website=medhum.med.nyu.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-03-08}}</ref>