TY - JOUR T1 - Recovering the self: a manifesto for primary care JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 582 LP - 583 DO - 10.3399/bjgp16X687901 VL - 66 IS - 652 AU - Christopher Dowrick AU - Iona Heath AU - Stefan Hjörleifsson AU - David Misselbrook AU - Carl May AU - Joanne Reeve AU - Deborah Swinglehurst AU - Peter Toon Y1 - 2016/11/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/66/652/582.abstract N2 - Huge political, ideological and organisational changes are engulfing primary care, placing intense pressures on the sense of self for both patient and doctor within the consultation.A recent Health Foundation report urges us to develop care practices rooted in a philosophy of people as ‘purposeful, thinking, feeling, emotional, reflective, relational, responsive beings’.1 GPs are encouraged to work collaboratively with patients, fostering shared decision-making and promoting self-management. This assumes that patients (and doctors) have agency and capacity, the ability to make their own choices and decisions and the power to take action in a given situation. But these assumptions are problematic when you are running 15 minutes late during a morning surgery with 18 patients, most of whom are unknown to you, and your QOF screen pop-up urges you to update the patient’s CVD risk assessment score and take action to reduce their HbA1c levels.We wish to give clinicians ‘permission’ to do person-centred care by offering a language of self that they can use to describe and defend their practice. Our principal motivations in establishing the centrality of the self in primary care are to offer hope to those entering the field, encourage those jaded by their current experience in practice, and provide vital underpinning to the generalist cause.Patients’ sense of self can be severely affected by the suffering they experience, whether the vitiating impact of socioeconomic deprivation, the fragmenting effects of sustained domestic violence, the catastrophic consequences of … ER -