Module 1: Narratives Of Health Flashcards
Chaos narrrative
A continuous story without an end stuck in the present and related to suffering - it follows the pattern of ‘and then…. And then…. And then…’
Restitution narrative
Typical of health workers, a story line that says ‘Yesterday I was well, today I am sick, tomorrow I will be completely well again’
Quest narrative
A storyline where people go on to find greater meaning for themselves in their illness by accomplishing some important and difficult task
What part of reality do restitution stories leave out?
The metaphysical aspects of illness
What part of reality do chaos stories leave out?
The possibility of hope and acceptance
What part of reality do quest narratives leave out?
They tend to diminish greatly the suffering involved at least initially in a quest
By developing sophistication in interpreting stories helps us to understand what?
The context of peoples health experiences - and to recognise that people respond to illness in varied ways - recovery is a process not an event
Explain what it means by “Recovery is a process, not an event”
People respond to illness in varied ways
Explain what it means by “health practitioners and scientists are no more bulletproof than anyone else to life’s misfortunes”
You can be a patient and a professional too
What does sensitivity to context from health workers and scientists allow them to do?
Examine and reveal our own assumptions about health behaviour and so become better scientists and health workers
Explaining health as a journey
Express the distance we must travel to reach another’s experience of health
Define illness
Physical and emotional changes, temporary demoralisation
Language of distress
Bridge between unwell and social acknowledgment
Categorisation of ill people in populations
Derogatory terms for not being well body
Curing vs healing
Curing does not equal healing, curing is eliminating the disease
Suffering vs pain
Suffering = pain with no purpose
Pain = purposeful eg ballet
Disease
Any harmful deviations from normal
The importance of understanding stories and storytelling in medicine
Can offer holistic patient centred care
Health
The capacity to become sick and recover and continue living your life
Contested disgnosis
When individuals have differing opinions of sickness
Positive things that having a diagnosis can mean for individuals when suffering with an illness
End to uncertainty or unexplained symptoms
Hope for a cure
A plan of action in relation to treatment that gives our lives a purpose
Negative things that having a diagnosis can mean for individuals when suffering with an illness
Some diagnosis create stigma
Some offer no hope for a cure
Deciding whether or not to tell others can be very difficult in terms of heritable illnesses
What do pilgrimages describe?
The impact of illness in our lives and hero’s us to conceptualise the distances we must cover to understand another’s experience
Suffering
Distress caused by threat or disruption to a state of wellbeing
Loss of autonomy
Alienation from yourself/others
Suffering aspects
Physical/mental health
Relationships
Purpose
Spiritual connectedness
Explain why healing does not equal curing
Healing considers much more deeper rooted issues within the person
Healing aspects
Spiritual
Physical
Emotional
Social
Which 2 sorts of healing processes are there?
Healing can be an active process or a serendipitous process - this means discovered by chance in a happy or beneficial way
Healing vs curing
Healing means becoming whole
Curing means eliminating all evidence of disease
How do narratives demonstrate suffering and healing?
Act as a bridge between suffering and healing
Chaos narratives mostly show…
Suffering
Quest and witness/testimonial narratives help us with…
Moving forward
Restitution narratives aid with…
Healing
Intersectionality
Explores the idea of how our biographical attributes interact to determine our ‘life chances’
List some biographical attributes
Gender
Income
Occupation
Sexuality
Structural suffering
A systematic, widespread, predictable inequality of access to those processes that enhance and sustain wellbeing
Processes than enhance and sustain wellbeing
Opportunity
Income
Health
Structural suffering impact on our health
Authorises others to regard poor/disenfranchised individuals as worthless or “less” than human
Example of structural suffering from lecture - Bhopal incident (explain)
The people of bhopal were represented as the poorer people, while the chemical companies and the government were represented as the richer people who took advantage of the poor
2 examples of intersectionality
Disability
Structural suffering
Disability influences which life chances
Can be made to feel less worthy
Limited job opportunities
The reading (Ellis, 2008) illustrates what?
That disability can influence life chances in many ways
Explain what happened in the reading (Ellis, 2008) and the impact it caused
Able bodied people taking pictures of dwarves in public, and they are made to feel a spectacle and less than human
Bio power
How social power influences individuals in society
Explains the 2 levels that bio power can be at
Population - where biomedicine gathers and gives authorities knowledge to the population as a whole
Individual - who hears the important info and take it on board
Bio power at an individual level
Can influence us to undertake technologies of the self or healthy lifestyle behaviour’s
