MEANINGFUL LIFE WITH(OUT) CANCER COPING NARRATIVES OF EMERGING FINNISH ADULTS (original) (raw)

For young people, the occurrence of cancer disrupts the coherence of life and disturbs hopes and dreams for the future. The aim of this research was to discover, with a narrative approach, how religion and worldview impacted the coping process of emerging adults with cancer. The data consists of life tree drawings, autobiographical interviews, blogs, and a letter which were all subjected to narrative analysis. The textual data were analyzed utilizing both a narrative holistic analysis and a thematic perspective. Additionally, the drawings were analyzed by elaborating a visual-narrative analysis. The introductory article represents a meta-analysis of four independent articles. These articles encompass the appearance of religiosity in the coping process; spheres of religion, spirituality, and the secular as manifested in the meaning-making process; and the appearance of hope and despair in the participants future narratives. Since the drawings provided a novel approach to the visual-narrative analysis, one article scrutinizes the analytical process in more detail. Building on the results of the articles, the introductory article seeks to find answers to the following questions: 1.) How does the surrounding context of an individual, and their close relationships, affect the coping process and the experience of meaning? 2.) What are the conditions for the process of coping with cancer to become a meaningful part of the self and life? What is the relation between discovering meaning in cancer and experiencing meaning in life? These questions are scoped with a theoretical discussion about meaning in life within a narrative understanding. It was found that the meaning-making process occurs particularly within the spheres of self/others. For many of the participants, cancer caused a loss of meaning in multiple areas of life. Through the process of meaning-making, an individual can appraise cancer as a meaningful part of life and self. As the changes in the self were situated in the personal context of life, loved ones had a significant role in the coping and meaning-making. Further, the buffered self and important relationships were perceived as a source of meaning in cancer. Furthermore, not all individuals have the need to find meanings in cancer. Therefore, meanings made from the crisis cannot be dealt with as a parallel concept to meaning in life. Even though a meaningful life is constructed from multiple sources of meaning, hope and despair are likely to follow the emerging adults for years to come. Therefore, young people with cancer should be encountered as holistic human beings with individual needs in order to guide them through the emotional effusion that cancer arouses during treatment and in the long term.