Kaptein’s article presents an intellectually stimulating perspective on the use of novels as data sources in health psychology. The integration of literary narratives within the broader framework of health humanities is both imaginative and promising, particularly in its potential to deepen our understanding of illness experiences, patient-provider interactions, and the subjective dimensions of health and well-being.
That said, as this interdisciplinary approach gains traction, further methodological elaboration would significantly enhance its credibility and applicability. While interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is mentioned as a viable analytic lens, the paper offers limited detail on how literary content is systematically analyzed and theoretically grounded in core health psychology frameworks. For instance, how are relevant narrative segments identified and linked to psychological constructs such as illness perceptions or treatment control beliefs? What criteria govern the selection of novels or passages, and how are concerns related to interpretive subjectivity addressed?
Clarifying these methodological aspects would not only strengthen the theoretical coherence of the proposed approach but also lay the foundation for its epistemological credibility within empirical health psychology. Without a clearly articulated analytic framework, the risk of interpretive subjectivity, selective reading, or post-hoc theorizing becomes non-trivial, potentially undermining the legitimacy of novels as data sources in scientific inquiry. As the field increasingly embraces qualitative and narrative methodologies, it becomes imperative to establish analytic protocols that ensure conceptual transparency, replicability, and theoretical alignment with core psychological constructs. Doing so will not only validate the use of literary texts as meaningful sources of insight but also position health humanities as a robust, methodologically grounded contributor to interdisciplinary health research. The proposal opens a fertile avenue, but its sustained impact will depend on the development of rigorous, transferable methodologies capable of bridging narrative form and empirical interpretation.