Description
TitleLife with, after, or beyond cancer
Date Created2015
Other Date2015-10 (degree)
Extent1 online resource (ix, 388 p. : ill.)
DescriptionI examine how women “move on,” or are unable to, after a diagnosis of breast cancer. I interviewed 80 survivors of various types and stages of breast cancer to explore the relationship between how breast cancer survivors think about cancer and how they manage the daily consequences of this disease, including its effects on identity. My main objective was to examine the cognitive strategies and social practices survivors employ for living with (a history of having had) cancer. Cancer experience is undoubtedly shaped by factors like disease stage and type, treatments received, time since diagnosis and treatment, age, and social location. But many of my participants, across categories, described bracketing some aspects of their experience while holding onto a certain degree of ontological insecurity as they redefined their lives after, with, or beyond cancer. Drawing on ontological insecurity enabled them to remain attuned to their selves: they used cancer to help them redraw boundaries in their lives and focus attention on their selves in ways they were not doing previously. While self-regulatory health practices, feminist ideologies/the women’s health movement, and environmental awareness overlap in breast cancer survivorship to produce activated patients and actualized subjectivities, my participants also discussed how the existential and medical uncertainties of their experiences led them to create new spaces for meaning in their lives. However, while many of my participants wanted to use cancer as a catalyst for self-growth or change across life domains, certainly not all of them were able to do so. Survivorship programs are critical in this regard. They can help survivors harness the uncertainty they feel instead of allowing it to become paralyzing or debilitating. Many survivors need help framing ontological insecurity as a resource to employ, not something to move beyond; but, moreover, they need spaces in which they can acknowledge these uncertainties as part of their new realities.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Noteby Jennifer R. Hemler
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Languageeng
CollectionGraduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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