The Burden of Sympathy

Another great book—this one is not new –it was published in 2000 and I stumbled across it looking for something completely unrelated. The book is called “The Burden of Sympathy” by David Karp. Karp is a sociologist who writes about caregiving and families of people with chronic mental illness. “The Burden of Sympathy” is his third book and this one is for all of us who are caregivers to people with chronic illness of any kind. And for many cancer is chronic—until it’s not.

Karp writes about the psychology and sociology of caregiving—but even though he is an academic, his writing is not. In minutes I was flipping chapter to chapter and underlining sentences—always a sure sign that this book has to become one of mine.

Here is the quote that opens Chapter One:

“As little as we know of illness, we know even less of care. As much as the ill person’s experience is denied, the caregiver’s experience is denied more completely.”