Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
place permits contextualisation of our individual sense of being in
the world. The sharing of life stories can also be of benefit to
participants.
The narrative approach is compatible with the investigation of
illness experiences and is used extensively in sociological research.
Frank (1995), himself a cancer survivor, describes how the telling of
stories gives voice to the body even as they are told through the
body. Frank concludes that those experiencing illness need to tell
their stories “in order to construct new maps and new perceptions
of their relationships to the world” (p 3). Chronic illness and
suffering often generate a narrative loss, as well as a physical loss;
- the fracturing of a life story as patients restructure lives in new
ways to accommodate disabled bodies (Mattingly, 1994).
Mathieson and Stam (1995) reflect on the special significance of
narratives for cancer patients. They state, “in negotiating their way
through regimens of treatment, changing bodies and disrupted
lives, the telling of one’s own story takes on a renewed urgency. In
the end, they are more than just ‘stories’ but the vehicle for making
sense of not an illness, but a life” (p 284).
Phenomenology
Husserl developed the term phenomenology to describe a
philosophical movement that dealt with the “essences of objects as
they present themselves to human consciousness” (McLoughlin
Gray, 1997, p 6). This leads to a belief that each person holds a
unique world-view informed by their individual experiences. Whilst
each subjective experience is unique, there is an essential similarity
conferred through shared experience (Dawkins & May, 2002, p
129). Phenomenology concentrates on how humans experience the
‘doing’ of their activities, describing it as ‘intentional’, that is,
directed at the world. Phenomenology permits better
understanding and illustrates individual accounts of lived, embodied
experience. Hasselkus (2002) explains that a phenomenological
perspective honours our “inner sense of experience” in our lived
“lifelong transformative encounters with the world”, our process of
‘becoming’ (p 68).
Cancer diagnosis and treatment presents particular challenges to
both patient and practitioner. Cancer is a disease “involving the
abnormal and excessive division of cells” (Barraclough, 2000, p xi).
This simple definition belies the tremendous impact that this illness
and its progression, and indeed its treatment, has on the individual
person and their lifeworld. The description of cancer as a ‘lifethreatening
illness’ goes some way to conveying the devastation for
those concerned and their loved ones that such a diagnosis brings.
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