The suspended self: Liminality in breast cancer narratives and implications for counselling (original) (raw)
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Underfifty Women and Breast Cancer: Narrative Markers of Meaning-Making in Traumatic Experience
Frontiers in Psychology, 2019
A diagnosis of breast cancer is considered a potential traumatic event associated with physical and psychological effects. In literature, an exploration of breast cancer experience in young women is lacking, able to shed light on the narrative processes of meaning-making of the experience in specific phases of treatment, as may be the initial impact with the onset of the cancer. Meaning-making processes are determinant aspects when dealing with traumatic events. The research took place at National Cancer Institute Pascale of Naples. We collected 50 ad hoc narrative interviews to explore the different domains of the experience with under-fifty women at the first phase of the hospitalization. The Narrative Interviews were analyzed through a qualitative methodology constructed ad hoc. Starting from the functions of meaningmaking that the narrative mediate we have highlight the different modes to articulate the narrative functions: The Organization of Temporality: chronicled (38%), actualized (26%), suspended (18%), interrupted (16%), and confused (2%). The Search for Meaning: internalized (42%); generalized (24%); externalized (18%); suspended (16%). The Emotional Regulation: disconnected (44%), splitted (28%), pervasive (26%), and connected (2%). The Organization of self-other Relationship: supportive (46%), avoidant (22%), overturned (16%), and sacrificial (16%). The Finding Benefit: revaluating (38%), flattened (34%), and postponed (28%). The Orientation to Action: combative (38%), blocked (36%), and suspended (26%). Findings capture the impact with the onset of the cancer, identifying both risk and resource aspects. The study allows to identify a specific use of narrative device by under-fifty women who impacted with the experience of breast cancer. The ways in which meaning-making functions are articulated highlight the specificity of the first phase of the treatment of the cancer. From a clinical psychology point of view, our findings can be used as clinical narrative markers to grasp, in a
The wounded blogger: analysis of narratives by women with breast cancer
Sociology of Health & Illness, 2016
The purpose of this article is to analyse the representation of the body in seven blogs by Spanish women with breast cancer. Using both texts and images, we analyse how they reproduce modern and postmodern logic to represent the wounded body. Based on Frank's proposals, this article draws the conclusion that the women bloggers mainly reproduce the modern logic (characterised by the restitution narrative and a predictable, disassociated and monadic body), but there are elements which break with this logic (the quest narrative, the body presented as associated, dyadic and full of desire, and the acceptance of contingency). After applying Frank's categories, we suggest that the contemporary way of experiencing illness may question the clarity of the modern/postmodern divide.
An analysis of women's accounts of breast cancer
Over the past ten years and more I have used a narrative framework to explore the social psychology of chronic illness, in particular cancer, asthma and chronic pain, and of occupational accidents (e.g., Murray, 1997a,b;. I have considered how these health problems are represented in everyday discourse by people with and without them and also how they are represented in the popular media. In this paper I want to discuss the role of narrative in making sense of illness by considering three studies I have conducted on women's reaction to breast cancer. A reflection on this empirical work will provide me with an opportunity to consider the growth of narrative within health psychology.
European journal of oncology nursing : the official journal of European Oncology Nursing Society, 2011
PURPOSE Women's experience of breast cancer treatment is a complex feature of survival which reflects and impacts upon the quality of their inter-personal relationships. We aimed to explore and present the issues and means through which these women relate their symptoms, treatments and effects. We utilised the 'cancer journey' as a heuristic device to chart women's experiences in the first year following diagnosis. METHOD Thirty-nine interviews were conducted over one year with a convenience sample of 10 women newly diagnosed with breast cancer recruited from a specialist oncology centre in England in 2005. Transcriptions of the interviews were analysed using a thematic narrative approach. RESULTS The findings suggested how women related coping and meaning to their experience of relationships, return to work, and self-management of breast cancer symptoms. The overwhelming impact of breast cancer was personal to each sufferer and yet reflects commonly reported treatme...
Cancer Memoirs as Narrative Strategy: Are Our Stories as Valuable as Our Breasts
This paper aims to investigate the ways narrative strategy can act to dismantle predominant views about breast cancer. First, the paper examines the very gendered perception of breast cancer and highlights the sexism and corporatization of the illness in relation to women. Subsequently, the paper unpacks how breasts have historically and continue to be viewed as constructing whole women and how a loss of a breast or both breasts unsettles the female identity in relation to this particular illness. This paper then offers narratives and counter-storytelling as a method for reclaiming, diversifying and dismantling cancer narratives that have been skewed to fit into sexist and corporatized molds of what breast cancer performance should be like for women. The importance of a proliferation of breast cancer narratives from the margins being centered is then illustrated through numerous examples to highlight how the narratives can talk back to dominant gendered discourse that entrenches women diagnosed and fighting breast cancer. please note I wrote this paper in a second year course so I understand that my writing and analysis has come far but I was proud to have it published *
Performing Illness and Health: The Humanistic Value of Cancer Narratives
Cancer is a potent example of a disease that grips and plays out on the body in ways that are both visceral and visual. This paper explores issues of disease and disorder, functioning and malfunctioning in bodies marked by cancer and a sense of nonbelonging. By working through the heuristic device of 'narrative', the paper argues for the humanistic value and currency of the personal (subjective) illness narrative in social science scholarship in being able to convey to audiences the emotional and existential complexities of cancer, beyond the merely medical. The paper, by drawing on ethnographic narratives of a small group of women with cancer and their inscriptive treatment practices, probes the shifting and constructed concepts of a socalled 'healthy' body and 'ill' body as experienced by the women, and attempts to show that a recognition of these experiences of the physical body is potentially able to contribute to shaping more compassionate, person-centred health care models of illness and healing.
Understanding breast cancer stories via Frank's narrative types
Social Science & Medicine, 2004
While breast cancer narratives have become prevalent in Western culture, few researchers have explored the structure of such narratives, relying instead on some form of thematic analysis based upon content. Although such analyses are valuable, Arthur Frank (The Wounded Storyteller, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995) provides researchers with an additional means of studying stories of illness, through the examination of their structures. In this article, the author applies Frank's work to a phenomenological study of embodiment after breast cancer. Frank's three narrative types are used to enhance understanding of the ways in which stories are culturally constructed, using data collected through one focus group discussion and two in-depth interviews with each of 12 women who had experienced breast cancer. The author then conveys the significance of this form of analysis for future research. r
Health Psychology Report
health psychology report • original article background The onset of breast cancer is considered a potential traumatic event associated with physical and psychological effects, in particular when it occurs at the age below 50. The literature lacks a longitudinal narrative exploration of breast cancer experience of young women. participants and procedure Using the narrative device as a diachronic tool aimed at promoting semiotic connection processes during the different phases of the therapeutic path, the authors constructed an ad hoc narrative interview to explore the meaning-making processes of 10 breast cancer patients below 50 years old during three turning-point phases: prehospitalization (T1); postoperative counseling (T2); and adjuvant therapy (T3). The research took place at National Cancer Institute Pascale of Naples. Through an ad hoc qualitative methodology, this study identifies the prevailing modes with which the five narrative meaning-making functions are articulated in the repeated narrative during the three phases.