Narrative health research: Exploring big and small stories as analytical tools
In qualitative health research many researchers use a narrative approach to study lay health concepts and experiences. In this article, I explore the theoretical linkages between the concepts narrative and health, which are used in a variety of ways. The article builds on previous work that conceptualizes health as a multidimensional, positive, dynamic and morally dilemmatic yet meaningful practice. I compare big and small stories as analytical tools to explore what narrative has to offer to address, nuance and complicate five challenges in narrative health research: (1) the interplay between health and other life issues; ...
Source: Health: - January 2, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Sools, A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Faux masculinities among college men who experience depression
Depression is a significant problem among college men that can be complicated by masculine ideals of stoicism, reluctance to seek help, and risky self-management strategies. Underpinning these issues are complexities in recognizing what behaviors might be indicative of college men’s depressive symptoms. Findings drawn from a qualitative study of 25 Canadian-based college men who self-identified or were diagnosed with depression revealed three predominant masculine identities: the angry man; the solitary man; and the risk-reliant man. Within each of these themes men embodied aspects of idealized masculinity that were ...
Source: Health: - January 2, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Oliffe, J. L., Galdas, P. M., Han, C. S., Kelly, M. T. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Problematizing the neurochemical subject of anti-depressant treatment: The limits of biomedical responses to women's emotional distress
In this article we situate empirical research into women’s problematic experiences of anti-depressant medication within broader debates about pharmaceuticalization and the rise of the neurochemical self. We explore how women interpreted and problematized anti-depressant medication as it impeded their recovery in a number of ways. Drawing upon Foucauldian and feminist work we conceptualize anti-depressants as biotechnologies of the self that shaped how women thought about and acted upon their embodied (and hence gendered) subjectivities. Through the interplay of biochemical, emotional and socio-cultural effects medica...
Source: Health: - January 2, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Fullagar, S., O'Brien, W. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Working around a contested diagnosis: Borderline personality disorder in adolescence
This article presents an analysis of interviews undertaken with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) clinicians in two publicly funded Australian services, about their use of the BPD diagnosis. In contrast with notions of primacy of diagnosis or of transparency in communications, doctors, nurses and allied health clinicians resisted and subverted a diagnosis of BPD in their work with adolescents. We delineate specific social and discursive strategies that clinicians displayed and reflected on, including: team rules which discouraged diagnostic disclosure; the lexical strategy of hedging when using the diagno...
Source: Health: - January 2, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Koehne, K., Hamilton, B., Sands, N., Humphreys, C. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Tales of healthy men: Male reproductive bodies in biomedicine from 'Lebensborn' to sperm banks
Using the example of ‘sperm tales’, borne out of the biomedical technologies that went hand in hand with the establishment of the ‘science of man’ (andrology), the article engages with the epistemic evolution of interrelated biomedical theories and concepts of what constitutes a ‘healthy’ reproductive male body. The article asks: how has the normative ideal male body been either perpetuated or interrogated through these tales of male reproduction at the interface between scientific and medical technologies? And how were changes to the normalization of male bodies central to clinical prac...
Source: Health: - January 2, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Kampf, A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Young children's meaning making about the causes of illness within the family context
In this article we highlight the ways in which young children draw on their family contexts in their meaning making about the causes of illness. Studies of young children’s understanding of illness causality have largely focused on the nature of children’s knowledge rather than the ways in which children acquire their knowledge. Seeking to advance a socio-constructivist understanding of young children’s conceptualization of illness causality, we interviewed five four-year-old children and their family members. Analysis of participants’ narrative accounts suggests that young children’s illness ...
Source: Health: - January 2, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: McIntosh, C., Stephens, C., Lyons, A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
