Cancer diagnosis as discursive capture: Phenomenological repercussions of being positioned within dominant constructions of cancer

Willig, Carla

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.02.028

Cited by 81 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…By refusing interventions that they felt would lead to more harm than good, participants attempted to maximize their own therapeutic benefits. Patients and family were not necessarily ready to engage in an all out fight in the war against cancer (Willig, 2011) but rather engaged in a more measured process of transforming the self to achieve a cure. Participants often reconstituted the term "quality of life" to describe a rationale where one becomes fully engaged in the search but does not become physically incapacitated in the process.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Conflicted Dying”

et al. 2015

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Using a poststructural perspective, we examine the subjectivities that are produced when advanced cancer patients seek life extension through biomedical treatments. Seven case studies were developed that included 20 interviews with patients, family, nurses, and physicians recruited from a tertiary hospital in Canada, 30 documents, and 5 hours of participant observation. We identify seven types of subjectivity: (a) the Desperate Subject, (b) the Cancer Expert Subject, (c) the Proactive Subject, (d) the Productive Subject, (e) the Mistrusting Subject, (f) the Model Patient Subject, and (g) the Suffering Subject. We characterize the "conflicted dying," a contemporary figure who holds multiple perspectives about seeking curative treatment despite the acknowledgment of death. Using active strategies to gain access to treatment, this figure resists traditional arrangements of power/knowledge established by health care providers. We suggest that the search for life extension is a process of shaping the self to fit certain aesthetical traits associated with surviving cancer.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Conflicted Dying”

et al. 2015

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“…One participant requested her transcript but did not return her member check. , I noticed they had their own ways of making sense of cancer and that these were often quite different from, or even opposed, to mine" [24] . What does this quote mean to you?…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many authors have written about the culture of breast cancer in North America [1,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] . However, few studies have been designed to include women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and analyze their perceptions of the breast cancer culture [25][26][27][28][29][30] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women with breast cancer: Embracing and distancing themselves from the term cancer survivor

Stephenson¹,

Fletcher²,

Schneider³

2013

Clinical Nursing Studies

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The purpose of this study was to examine the lived experiences of women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, specifically focusing on the meaning they associate with the term cancer survivor. A woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer in North America undoubtedly will encounter the term cancer survivor at some point following her diagnosis. However, few studies have been focused on examining the meaning of this term for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, let alone whether these women embrace the use of this term. The lived experiences of nine women between the ages of 35 to 58 years were examined using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with interpretive phenomenology as a theoretical orientation. Data collection continued until three distinct themes emerged and saturation of data was achieved for each theme. The results of this study are focused on the meanings associated with the term cancer survivor for these women including identification, safety, and behavior change. A continuum model was developed from the data in order to illustrate the complexity of this subject matter. A person's position along the continuum depends on the meanings that person associates with the term cancer survivor (identification, safety, or behavior change) and that person's feelings, either positive or negative, towards those meanings. As such, this continuum demonstrates how a woman can embrace certain aspects of the term cancer survivor and distance herself from other aspects. These findings will benefit clinicians because attaining a rich description of a woman's lived experience with breast cancer will help them to understand and address psychosocial issues that arise throughout the breast cancer journey.

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“…Authors have explored the social construction of diagnostic categories (Armstrong 2011, Salter et al . 2011), the consequences of diagnosis (Singh 2011, Trundle 2011, Willig 2011), and the diagnostic process itself (Schubert 2011). This last aspect of diagnosis, diagnosis‐as‐process, refers to the practices by which an afflicted individual's symptoms and signs obtain coherence in terms of existing disease classification systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces: clinicians’ use of space and bodies during diagnosis

Gardner

Williams

2015

Sociology Health & Illness

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An emerging body of literature in sociology has demonstrated that diagnosis is a useful focal point for understanding the social dimensions of health and illness. This article contributes to this work by drawing attention to the relationship between diagnostic spaces and the way in which clinicians use their own bodies during the diagnostic process. As a case study, we draw upon fieldwork conducted with a multidisciplinary clinical team providing deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat children with a movement disorder called dystonia. Interviews were conducted with team members and diagnostic examinations were observed. We illustrate that clinicians use communicative body work and verbal communication to transform a material terrain into diagnostic space, and we illustrate how this diagnostic space configures forms of embodied ‘sensing‐and‐acting’ within. We argue that a ‘diagnosis’ can be conceptualised as emerging from an interaction in which space, the clinician‐body, and the patient‐body (or body‐part) mutually configure one another. By conceptualising diagnosis in this way, this article draws attention to the corporal bases of diagnostic power and counters Cartesian‐like accounts of clinical work in which the patient‐body is objectified by a disembodied medical discourse.

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Cancer diagnosis as discursive capture: Phenomenological repercussions of being positioned within dominant constructions of cancer

Cited by 81 publications

References 28 publications

The “Conflicted Dying”

The “Conflicted Dying”

Women with breast cancer: Embracing and distancing themselves from the term cancer survivor

Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces: clinicians’ use of space and bodies during diagnosis

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