Our patterns of illness, then the communications and activities we fabricate to address them, are often rich in unobvious human meaning, and thus opportunity. Yet overzealous pursuit of scientific approaches can here have paradoxical effects. This is because our diagnosis and therapeutics are systematised to short-circuit those very human vagaries that confer meaning. This first volume of the Anthology comprises earlier articles exploring the networks and meanings increasingly ignored by, then obscure to, medical practice. Many subtly coloured case examples help the reader navigate and decipher our shared human complexity in ways that can lead to therapeutic benefits otherwise elusive. The writings range widely: from psychosomatics to the personal vulnerabilities of healthcarers; from placebo psychology to the power of language; from the elements of psychotherapy to the follies of medically-modelled psychiatry. The breadth of enquiry is conveyed in a way that will appeal to a wide range of readers: with careful precision yet human nuance and hue.