Before we are anything else, we are feeling bodies. In fact, feelings are an important part of every experience we ever have. Feelings are not just emotions, and in practice cannot be separated from the processes of thinking and reasoning they are often assumed to simply interfere with. This book explains what feelings are and describes how they contribute to other psychological phenomena. Although feelings are often thought of as wholly private and personal, this book demonstrates that they are simultaneously social and relational. The book explains how analyses that include feelings can transform understandings of key topics related to health and illness – health beliefs, doctor-patient interactions in chronic fatigue, and madness. Some of the wider implications of this approach are also considered, both with respect to psychology and in relation to the ongoing 'affective turn' in the social sciences and humanities.
