illness- lived experience

Question 1

how is lived experience of illness relevant to sociology?

Answer 1

suffering is universal human condition

• others experience gives us meaning.
• meaning shaped by interaction + engagement.

Question 2

bury: belief that illness is biographical disruption

Answer 2

1. disruption of taken-or-granted

2. disruption in explanatory frameworks

Question 3

disruption of taken-for-granted assumptions + behaviours

Answer 3

1. attention drawn to body: become ill, attention to body. illness takes away unconscious.
2. uncertainty: in diagnoses + treatment. biogrpahical trajectory questioned
3. loss of control: plan for future no longer under our control

Question 4

disruption in explanatory frameworks

Answer 4

why me? why now? : q’s that wouldn’t have been considered otherwise. confront existence.
narrative reconstruction: come to terms w illness. put illness in context of own life, manage, understand + repair self

Question 5

narrative reconstruction + the wounded storyteller

Answer 5

self becomes what it never expected requires repair = make sense of experience

repair by autobiographical story. from cultural understanding, create bonds + shared meaning with others. . story -> resonate with other -> meanings = reinforce -> story etc.

Question 6

3 types of story types

Answer 6

1. restitution story
2. chaos story
3. quest story

Question 7

what is restitution story?

Answer 7

optimistic, regain control.

• > experience of illness is memory.
• > culturally preferred bc cure, medicine capable of solving problem.

Question 8

what is chaos story?

Answer 8

opposite of restitution story.

• > loss, physical decline, lack of success, + other domains.
• > life never gets better. lose control, thus frighten teller + listener

Question 9

2 examples of chaos story

Answer 9

1. Jack Layton NDP - had cancer, declared healthy, official opposition, quiet over summer, came back looked ill. died 8 weeks later.
2. doctors focus on diagnosis + forget to talk about end-of-life, + what that looks like.

Question 10

what is quest story?

Answer 10

not necessarily recovery, but positive ways illness changed life = transformative. show possibility of “woundedness”.. meaning from experience.