Psychosocial and Symbolic Dimensions of the Breast Explored through a Visual Matrix

Abstract

This article explores knowledge about the breast in lived experience, addressing a gap in empirical research on a highly gendered cultural trope and embodied organ. We present findings from a study that used a free-associative psychosocial method-the Visual Matrix-in order to stimulate expressions of tacit aspects of the breast, aiming to generate an understanding of relations between embodied and enculturated experiences. Our data revealed how an aesthetic of the grotesque in one matrix allowed the mainly female group to use humour as a "creative psychic defence" against culturally normative and idealized aspects of the breast. This was expressed through symbolizations, affectively delivered in an exuberant mode, emphasizing the breast's potency and its potential for nurturance and "weaponization". Through this feminine poetic, life and death became inseparable yet ambiguous dimensions of breasts. The breast's life-affirming qualities included the sensual, the visceral, and the joyful-a material-semiotic knowing. This was incontrast to a second matrix, which expressed a more ambivalent and troubled response, and in which associations were weighted towards the spectacular breast of an ocular-centric culture that privileges hetero-masculine looking. We discuss differences between the two matrices in terms of psychosocial tensions between embodied and enculturated experiences.

Scientific supremacy as an obstacle to establishing and sustaining interdisciplinary dialogue across knowledge paradigms in health care and medicine

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Heroes or criminals: discursive representation of cancer patients in health awareness advertisements

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Mothering Death: A Psychosocial Interpretation of Breast Cancer Biography

“…Although the present study cannot be said to adhere to a fully metabolised psychosocial methodology (see e.g. Gripsrud, Ramvi, Froggett, Hellstrand, & Manley, 2018;Ramvi et al, 2019), it is my view that the bricolage generated a rich-enough material for developing "thick description and interpretation" (Geertz, 1973) of the single case, which have been augmented by applying a psychosocial optic. Further to this, the bricolage also offered the benefits of "technique triangulation" (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983) between interviews and writings, and indeed for verification of a key finding in the interpretation, as will become apparent.…”