Diabetes is a life-long disease marked by elevated levels of glucose in the blood. It can be caused by too little insulin, resistance to insulin, or both. There are two major types of diabetes. Type I diabetes is usually diagnosed in childhood, as the body makes little or no insulin. Type II is far more common than type I, and usually occurs in adulthood. The pancreas does not make enough insulin to keep blood glucose levels normal. Type I is not categorized as a "lifestyle disease".
　The purpose of this paper is to examine a type I patient's process of self-image reconstruction while undergoing a diabetes education course and learning that she must change her lifestyle to control her blood glucose levels.
　She understood the diagnosis, was cooperative with the treatment and has no doubts about her blood glucose levels. However, as to the cause of the diabetes, she adhered to a medically incorrect understanding of the cause of her condition. Although she understood that type I has nothing to do with past behavior, she continues to blame her past lifestyle in her narrative.
　Medically correct explanations do not always exempt patients from feelings of self-responsibility for their diseases even when they understand their diagnosis and accept their treatment.