TY - JOUR T1 - Outside the Box JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 537 LP - 537 DO - 10.3399/bjgp13X673757 VL - 63 IS - 615 AU - Trisha Greenhalgh Y1 - 2013/10/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/63/615/537.abstract N2 - We’re big on The Self these days, aren’t we? Self-care, self-management, self-disclosure, self-efficacy, self-directed learning, self-examination, self-testing, self-administration of medication, self-actualisation: you name it, the 21st century Western individual is depicted as doing it or striving for it. What is more, professional practice and medical ethics are increasingly defined in a way that valorises the patient’s Cartesian self. We must respect their autonomy, share decisions with them, make ourselves accessible to them, and protect their data, where ‘them’ is actually a singular term, referring to ‘him’ or ‘her’.Yet as family doctors, we also know that few people — and even fewer truly healthy people — are … ER -