Narrative Autonomy to the Test of Illness

This chapter develops the thesis that illness, in addition to being physical pain, is experienced as a radical loss of autonomy. Such loss could be interpreted as the ethical–practical side of the loss of meaning, accompanied by a sharpening of the question concerning the existence of evil in the form of physical and psychological suffering. From an existential standpoint, this awareness of the impoverishment of our capacity to effectively act in the world cannot be denied. However, it also opens the possibility for a different exercise of autonomy, which assumes a narrative form. Indeed, the more we are pervaded by a sense of bewilderment, the more we feel the need to understand and reconstruct meaning.