The embodiment of social relations in coronary heart disease

Abstract

Recent work on the behaviour pattern characteristic of men developing coronary heart disease (CHD) has been aimed at increasing the predictive utility of methods designed to assess 'proneness' and at refining the Type A typology. This has had the indirect effect of restricting the elaboraton of theory relating to clinical evidence drawing upon the personal and social context of CHD. This paper reviews such evidence and concludes that explanations of 'coronary-prone behaviour' should acknowledge that it is embedded in particular uses of the body and in particular forms of social relationship. Based upon this premise, a conceptual analysis is presented to demonstrate that 'coronary proneness' is insufficiently described as a behaviour pattern, but is more usefully considered as a mode of action constituting a contradiction in the person's social relationships. It is further proposed that the bodily style of many CHD patients is necessarily understood as an expression of the development of this modality.