Episode 159: Illness
Released February 3rd, 2026
What does it mean to be ill? In episode 159 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss illness. They explore how illness has been mythologized, how it may alienate us from our bodies, and how it impacts social relationships. Is science the solution to the mythologization of illness, or is the scientific model of illness its own form of mythology? How should we conceptualize illness? Is it as a “deviation” from a norm? And if so, what norm? Finally, what can we learn about illness from a phenomenological approach that centers the patient’s first-person experience? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts think about the distinction between the mental and the physical in connection to illness and the intersection between mind and body in illness.
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Works Discussed
Georges Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological
Havi Carel, Illness: The Cry of the Flesh,
Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor
SK Toombs, The Meaning of Illness: A Phenomenological Account of the Different Perspectives of Physician and Patient
