Hammond Chad, Teucher Ulrich
Author Affiliations: School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ontario (Dr Hammond); and Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Canada (Dr Teucher).
Cancer Nurs. 2017 Jan/Feb;40(1):58-65. doi: 10.1097/NCC.0000000000000344.
Identity negotiations of people living with cancer have been shown to be significant psychosocial challenges throughout cancer trajectories but have not been adequately explored among young adults with cancer. Narrative approaches might help to reveal moments of (dis)empowerment that affect their identity negotiations.
The aim of this study is to explore how young adults speak to their identities in relation to their narratives of having cancer and receiving care.
A total of 21 young adults (18-45 years old) provided cancer narratives through semistructured life history interviews. Thematic narrative analysis was used to determine how participants represented themselves in their stories.
Participants used a wide diversity of identities well beyond those most familiar in dominant discourses (eg, patients, survivors, and fighters), and their identities frequently changed at significant "turning points" in their narratives, especially in relation to good and bad experiences of care.
Cancer-related identities often undergo personal and social negotiation over time, and not just among young adults still feeling the effects of treatment. Psychosocial oncology could take further steps toward incorporating this fluidity and multiplicity within the discipline's discourses of identity.
The identities gathered here may contribute to a more comprehensive toolkit of narrative resources for empowering young adults (and others) with cancer, serving as a starting point for negotiating identities with their care providers. Our findings raise questions about which identities should be fostered and how healthcare professionals might be (unknowingly) involved in patients' identity negotiations.
癌症患者的身份认同协商在整个癌症病程中已被证明是重大的社会心理挑战，但在年轻癌症患者中尚未得到充分探讨。叙事方法可能有助于揭示影响他们身份认同协商的（去）赋权时刻。
本研究旨在探讨年轻成年人如何根据他们患癌及接受治疗的经历来讲述自己的身份。
共有21名年轻成年人（18 - 45岁）通过半结构化的生活史访谈提供了癌症经历。采用主题叙事分析来确定参与者在他们的故事中如何呈现自己。
参与者使用了远比主流话语中最常见的身份（如患者、幸存者和抗争者）更为多样的身份，并且他们的身份在其叙事中的重要“转折点”经常发生变化，尤其是与护理的好坏经历相关时。
与癌症相关的身份认同往往会随着时间推移经历个人和社会层面的协商，而且不仅仅发生在仍受治疗影响的年轻成年人当中。心理肿瘤学可以进一步采取措施，将这种流动性和多样性纳入该学科的身份认同话语之中。
这里收集到的身份认同可能有助于为增强患癌年轻成年人（及其他人）的权能提供更全面的叙事资源工具包，作为与他们的护理提供者协商身份认同的起点。我们的研究结果引发了关于应培养哪些身份认同以及医疗保健专业人员可能如何（在不知不觉中）参与患者身份认同协商的问题。
