Taking Charge: Overcoming the Challenges of Long-Term Illness (Hardcover)

by Irene Pollin (Author), Susan K. Golant (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The authors estimate that there are currently some 53 million Americans afflicted with long-term illness, most commonly arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. Psychiatric social worker Pollin's expressed goal is to enable these people to live constructively by addressing major fears that add to the distress of patients and their loved ones, such as stigma, dependency, abandonment and isolation. Writing with health journalist Golant, Pollin discusses these and other problems in the reassuring and practical voice of a wise friend, emphasizing the importance of both medical and non-medical resources like family and support groups. The authors urge the chronic sufferer to "integrate" the disease into their lives in the way most appropriate to their "coping style," somewhere along a continuum from "confronter" to "avoider." Each chapter ends with a list of homilies and things to do, summarizing the flexible approach of this perceptive, realistic guide. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Nearly everyone will be at one time or another affected by one (or more) chronic illnesses such as arthritis, diabetes, and heart or lung disease. These two books offer ways to cope effectively with the psychological and physical demands long-term conditions place on us. In Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions , the authors present a self-management guide, suggesting practical living skills--such as nutrition, exercise, planning, and communication--that help give the chronically ill a renewed sense of control over their lives. In Taking Charge , a psychiatric social worker Pollin addresses the fears that come with a medical crisis: loss of control or of self-image, dependency, abandonment, stigma, anger, isolation , and death. His book is like an extended counseling session in a book. Separately or as companion volumes, both titles are recommended for popular health collections.
- Anne C. Tomlin, Auburn Memorial Hosp. Lib., N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 262 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (March 8, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812922581
• ISBN-13: 978-0812922585
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #246,413 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Validation and real coping suggestions for medical crises., January 21, 1999

By A Customer

As a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in counseling individuals coping with chronic illness, I have recommended this book to clients and to the public in my advertising. The book is worded in everyday language speaking to the reader. The content is to the point and not caught up in philosophy or jargon. It is well organized to not only validate a spectrum of emotional ractions but also to assist the reader to break an overwhelming experience into workable parts. The reader is respected as an already successfully coping adult who has been met with a crisis and needs support. Specific, useful coping suggestions are offered to the client. The book offers validation, a sense of direction, and hope of regaining control to the person or family confronted with a medical crisis.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taking Charge: No Alternative, May 10, 2004

By	Dr Victor S Alpher (Austin, Texas, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Taking Charge: Overcoming the Challenges of Long-Term Illness (Hardcover)

As a person who has seen chronic illness from both sides of the physician's white coat, I highly recommend this book. This book will be useful not only to the afflicted, but also to those family and friends who must also cope with the "elephant" in the room--which begins to take up a larger and larger portion of the free space around the patient as time goes by, and as the physician(s) become more and more distant, letting you know that the are gradually withdrawing emotionally after the condition becomes one of those within medicine that, frankly, fill most of the charts on the walls of medical records offices.

It is much to easy to succumb to the incipient blaming that comes as you repeatedly seek assistance and find little relief, or, worse, manipulation and financial and emotinoal rip-off throughout the health care system. You know it isn't the people...but it gets harder and harder.

This book was first published in 1994, but is no less relevant today than then...and highly recommended. The subtitle: Overcoming the challenges of long-term illness....belies the secret greatest obstacle facing many patients in our "modern" society...how to achieve a sense of meaningful life in a society in which we are barraged with the illusion of youth, immortality, health-promotion with little scientific basis, and stereotypes of physical beauty.

I would like to see comparisons to those who are "treated" in health-care systems that approach chronicity differently...