Chapitre 2. Fondements et variations des psychothérapies analytiques en oncologie

Bacqué, Marie-Frédérique

doi:10.3917/lav.bacqu.2014.01.0025

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…According to the psychodynamic perspective [ 9 ], talking about cancer prevention brings into play the need to connect to health research, the study of mental representations concerning illness and health care, defense mechanisms and personality aspects connected to health choices [ 10 ]. The risk of cancer represents a critical experience for the psyche, which can defend itself with false ideas of integrity and absoluteness, refusing to admit the finitude of existence, therefore sheltering itself from the anguish of death [ 11 , 12 ] and from the traumatic illness experience [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. In addition, from a gender perspective [ 17 , 18 ], women are encouraged to take care of their bodies, to become protagonists of their own health, to take on this responsibility and to undergo medical examinations in the absence of symptoms, thus exposing themselves to the risk of discovering a sick body [ 19 ] in its intimate and unspeakable parts, which symbolize female sexual identity [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ].…”

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confidence: 99%

Cancer Prevention Sense Making and Metaphors in Young Women’s Invented Stories

2022

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Despite the proven effectiveness of cancer prevention, the literature highlights numerous obstacles to the adoption of screening, even at a young age. In cancer discourse, the metaphor of war is omnipresent and reflects an imperative demand to win the war against disease. From the psychodynamic perspective, the risk of cancer forecasts an emotionally critical experience for which it is important to study mental representations concerning illness and health care. Through the creation of an invented story that offers a framework for imagination, our aim is to understand what the relationship with preventive practices in oncology means for young women and how this relationship is revealed by their metaphors. A total of 58 young women voluntarily participated in the present research, answering a narrative prompt. The stories written by the participants were analyzed using qualitative methodology to identify construct, themes and metaphors. Our findings identify four constructs: the construction of a defense: youth as protection; the attribution of blame about cancer risk; learning from experience as a prevention activator; and from inaccessibility to access to preventive practices: the creation of engagement. The construction of an invented story allows us to promote a process of prefiguration on the bodily, affective and thought planes invested in preventive practice and brings out the use of metaphors to represent cancer risk and self-care. The results allow us to think about the construction of interventions to promote engagement processes in prevention from an early age.

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