Positive thinking in the face of illness purports to give us back a modicum of control. It suggests coherence in a chaotic world. It makes willpower and mindset meaningful again—even though willpower is one of the things that disease can prove to be a false (or at least overdetermined) construct. No wonder so many Americans still believe that positive thinking has a role to play in health. I, too, wished that it could lift me from my morass of sickness, even as I instinctively distrusted our cultural embrace of it: the American affection for positive thinking reflects a desire for illness
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