Programme full

Wednesday 15 April 2015 09:00 - 10:30
PAPER SESSION 1
suggested, drawing on time as a theoretical construct, a methodological strategy and a substantive topic in its own
right. The overall aim is to enrich lifecourse research by bringing time and lived experiences more centrally into the
picture.
Medicine, Health and Illness 1
C236, CHARLES OAKLEY BUILDING
A Socio-bioethical Exploration of British Adult Female Cancer Patients Making Oncofertility Decisions
Paton, A.
(Newcastle University)
This paper examines from a socio-bioethical perspective British premenopausal cancer patients' experiences with
making oncofertility decisions. It presents original empirical research into the experiences of a small group of patients
to address social, clinical and ethical concerns about how patients make decisions in the British medical context. The
paper also examines whether social and bioethical theories of autonomy and agency adequately capture how
decisions are made in practice, using empirical data to interrogate existing theory. To address these questions, semistructured
interviews were conducted with premenopausal cancer patients. Data from the interviews were analysed
using sociological and bioethical theories in order to improve understandings of how this patient group makes
decisions, and how they feel this experience could be improved. This research therefore contributes to the growing
body of literature seeking to identify how patients make decisions within the medical context and what types of support
are necessary to address the needs identified by patients. Furthermore, the paper seeks to demonstrate how
Sociology as a discipline can be seen as a constitutive part of bioethics, with this project serving as an example of one
way that bioethical research can be conducted through a sociological lens.
Medicine, Health and Illness 2
W823, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
Seeking Solidity and Fluidity: Movement, Agency and Safety in Service Users’ Use of Space During Mental
Health Crisis
McGrath , L.
(University of East London)
Since the closure of the UK asylums, service users no longer negotiate experiences of distress and madness primarily
in the context of institutional spaces. Service users even tend to negotiate at least some of the most extreme and
intense periods of mental health crisis in the same places where they also live and work, the collection of disparate
and complex spaces which make up 'the community'. This paper will explore the role of these myriad spaces in mental
health crisis, looking at the way in which service users move through and within space, to establish agency and
dis/order. Empirical material from visual interviews with service users, as well as published autobiographical material,
will be explored, in an analysis informed by theories of embodiment and relational space. Two key patterns of
movement will be focussed on in the discussion. Fluidity and possibility were central to some of the psychotic
experiences described, where participants described moving outside, seeking, and utilising, greater possibilities for
agentic action and relational contact. Solidity and security, conversely, were central to some accounts of anxiety and
depression, which tended to describe using the private space of the home to establish order and restore agency and
strength, as an escape from overwhelming experiences in public space. It is noted that these features of the spaces
sought out voluntarily by service users in times of crisis, bear little relation to the current spaces provided in mental
health crisis services.
Whose Responsibility Are Mental Health Problems?
Andersson, R.
(Thematic-Studies)
Mental health problems are a growing global concern. In Sweden, the welfare states' spending on mental health has
been particularly high since the 1990s. Dealing with mental health issues has therefore received political attention, not
least in relation to work-related problems. Terms like 'burnout' and 'chronic fatigue syndrome' have been widely used
and created the need of finding new strategies to handle this large and growing group.
67 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University