Silence in illness

With their frequent calls to ‘break the silence’ of illness, contemporary health discourse and activism appear to assume silence is inherently harmful and speaking inherently beneficial. In this paper, we question this assumption. Using resources from recent scholarship on silence and examples from firstperson accounts illness, we suggest a more complex picture of silence in illness. On this picture, (a) there are different kinds of silence, (b) only some of them are a symptom of oppression or silencing, and (c) it is questionable whether the production of speech (or text) per se is an effective means of sharing one’s illness experiences. The first section explores what we term ‘imposed silence’ and some ways of addressing it, giving examples from mental health. The second section discusses pathophobic vices as sources of silencing practices. In the third section we discuss what we call 'agential silences’ and how these can be thwarted. Finally, we consider how these silences and silencing practices may apply to those who are ill.