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  • The Fibromyalgia Story: Medical Authority and Women’s Worlds of Pain
  • Ranae Jo Evenson
The Fibromyalgia Story: Medical Authority and Women’s Worlds of Pain By Kristin K. Barker Temple University Press, 2005. 252 pages. $68.50 (cloth), $22.95 (paper)

The power of medical authority in our society is often taken for granted. We come to understand disease based on diagnoses by medical professionals. In addition, failure to provide a diagnosis comes to mean that "nothing is wrong." When individuals continue to complain about painful symptoms even after doctors have determined there is no diagnosis, persons' complaints are attributed to pains that everyone experiences due to the aging process, or their persistence that something is wrong is determined to be psychological in nature. Barker's book has two main components. She provides a detailed history of fibromyalgia within the institution of medicine, allowing the reader to see the contested nature of the disease and the continued resistance to accept FMS as a disease from the majority of the medical community. Second, based on interviews with 30 women and four men suffering from FMS, Barker points to the similarities and differences in the experiences of living with FMS across this group of individuals.

The book is all placed within a much broader sociological focus drawing on several key theoretical and conceptual bases. For example, power is a key theme throughout the book, whereby the power of the medical establishment acts as both a right of passage in those instances where doctors provide persons with a name for their suffering, "Fibromyalgia Syndrome," and acts as a constant barrier for most sufferers given the reluctance of most medical professionals to accept FMS as a "real" disease. Moreover, we see the power of medical authority as it filters into the minds of the lay public. Interviewees' accounts about how their families and friends deal with their illness indicate that most persons appear to agree with those professionals who refuse to acknowledge that FMS is something more than a psychological problem. Barker points to the unique situation persons with FMS are placed in given that the illness experience of FMS sufferers is not widely recognized or accepted by the medical community or the lay community.

Underlying her discussion of power, Barker draws on theory regarding the social construction of knowledge. We see how definitions of disease change over [End Page 1827] time and how FMS went from an unrecognized and unknown set of symptoms to eventual diagnosis (according to some medical professionals). We also see the role of power playing into the gender dynamics of FMS. Barker argues that the lack of focus on the gendered nature of this disease may stem from the lack of power among women in general, despite the fact that it is mostly women who appear to suffer from FMS.

While a macro-level orientation guides Barker's discussion about the history of FMS, she adopts a micro-level approach to summarizing the actual experiences and accounts provided by the persons interviewed in her study. In this way, Barker addresses the issues of identity and meaning in uncovering the "illness experience" of these women. Here, I found it quite intriguing that many of the themes uncovered by Barker are similar to those discussed in David Karp's work regarding persons who suffer from mental illness. It appears that due to the lack of a specific (and relatively narrow) set of symptoms used to define FMS, persons with FMS face many of the same barriers as do those who have mental illness – one can suffer a long time before anyone ever recognizes or diagnoses the disease, one may face tremendous resistance from doctors and family/friends to accept that something is wrong, and diagnosis does not directly result in treatment, a reduction of symptoms or a cure.

Finally, Barker points to the micro-macro link tied to the social construction of reality by uncovering the ways in which sufferers themselves unite. Individuals with FMS have created social support networks where persons can turn for information and emotional support. Through newsletters, magazines, and on-line websites and support groups, people can gather evidence that the disease exists and that...

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