Narrative health psychology is a subdiscipline of health psychology that brings narratives into illness to help patients make sense of their illness in the context of their lives. Narrative health psychology can be effective in helping people with chronic conditions and with serious health problems such as cancer and heart disease because these diseases have such a large impact on people's lives (not just patients but carers and families) that it is important to consider how the disease fits in with the whole life experience of the patient.