There is now a renewed interest in narrative analysis in the humanities, social sciences and medicine. Disease narratives are of particular interest in health-related settings. The article discusses the background to this interest. The current emphasis on patient narratives can be seen as stemming from changing patterns of morbidity, the expansion of disease information and public debates about the efficacy of medicine. The article then outlines a framework for analysing illness narratives. This includes an examination of three types of narrative forms: 'contingent narratives', which refer to beliefs about the origins of illness, the immediate causes of an illness episode, and the immediate impact of illness on everyday life; 'moral narratives', which describe (and help to constitutionalize) the changes that occur between the person, illness and social identity, and help (restore) an individual's moral status or help to maintain social distance; and 'core narratives', which reveal connections between the experiences of the layperson and deeper cultural levels of meaning of suffering and illness. Here, a distinction is made between subforms such as heroic, tragic, ironic and comic, and regressive\/progressive narratives. Finally, the article discusses some of the methodological issues involved in narrative analysis. Given the complex nature of illness narratives, their social and psychological functions and the motivational issues they address, it is suggested that they pose a major challenge for sociological analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n