UBC Theses and Dissertations

UBC Theses Logo

UBC Theses and Dissertations

The meaning of cancer in a new marriage Barz, Marilyn

Abstract

This study explores the meaning of cancer as experienced by newly married couples. The participants were engaged as co-researchers in an attempt to understand this unique experience. In the initial interview, questions were asked to encourage storytelling and introspection. The goal of the collaboration was mutually understood to be the creation of stories that would accurately reflect each couple's experience and illuminate the meaning of that experience. Narrative accounts from the initial interviews were examined and validated by each couple in a second interview. Each narrative account was then rigorously analyzed to find themes of meaning, which were compared across accounts. Important themes emerged, giving new insights into the processes of deconstruction and reconstruction that helped the subjects to survive and make sense of the cancer experience. This study contributes to the body of research on the subjectively lived experience of cancer, and in important ways challenges some of the assumptions in the oncology literature. It is clear from the narrative accounts, for example, that the concept of recovery as an individual, sequential, and finite process does not accurately describe the recovery processes of these subjects, who experienced recovery as an ongoing, lifelong process occurring within a variety of individual and interpersonal contexts.

Item Media

Item Citations and Data

Rights

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.