City Research Online

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the phenomenological repercussions of being positioned within widely available discursive constructions of cancer. One of the many challenges of being diagnosed with cancer is that it requires the person to make sense of the diagnosis and to find meaning in their changed circumstances. From a social constructionist point of view, such meaning is made out of discursive resources which are available within one’s culture. This paper critically reviews some of the dominant discourses surrounding cancer which are available within English-speaking Western industrialized cultures. It maps out the discursive positions available to those diagnosed with cancer and it traces some of their implications for how cancer may be experienced and how it may be lived with. As such, this paper is concerned with the social and psychological consequences of being positioned within dominant cancer discourses.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2011, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publisher Keywords:	Cancer diagnosis; Discourse; Discursive positioning; Phenomenological repercussions; Experience of illness
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0254 Neoplasms. Tumors. Oncology (including Cancer)
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Psychology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads