This radical book deprives us of illness as an alibi for our unresolved problems. It attempts to show that the patient is not the innocent victim of some quirk of nature, but actually the author of his or her own sickness. In this way Dethlefsen and Dahlke bring the metaphysical aspect of illness to the fore. From this viewpoint symptoms are seen to be bodily expressions of psychological conflicts, able through their symbolism to reveal the patient's current problems.