[Body image and the experience of illness--experience of women with breast cancer].
This phenomenological study aimed at problematizing the living body as experienced by American women who suffered from breast cancer and underwent chemotherapy. Forty-eight interviews were collected from 18 women over a period of six months for another study. A secondary analysis was performed. It centered on the following three questions: 1. How do bodily changes impact on the women's embodied self-understanding? 2. How does bodily subjection to medical treatments illuminate professional and self's relationships to the body? and 3. What kind of knowledge about the body and the illness do the women express?


RESULTS
1. Central in the patients' accounts were experiences of "I cannot" (any more) or "I can" (again). 2. Illness and bodily subjection to medical interventions influenced the women's relationship with their body. Five different patterns of "I"-body-relationships are described. They varied between "I"-body-oneness and "I"-body distance. 3. The women expressed varying levels of knowledge as they talked about bodily experiences and the illness. Vernacular concepts, medical concepts and complex medical knowledge were expressed. The paper emphasizes the existential importance of "I can" or "I cannot" experiences.
Kesselring
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A
D001828:Body Image; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D012647:Self-Assessment
Körperlichkeit und Krankheitserleben--Erfahrungen von Frauen mit Brustkrebs.