A discipline resulted from the clinical perspective applied to health psychology; it highlights the role of sensemaking process in the health promotion and in the psychological adjustment to illness.
Published in Chapter:
The Sense-Making Process in Adjustment to Breast Cancer Experience in Younger Women: A Clinical Healthcare Perspective
Maria Luisa Martino (University Federico II, Italy), Daniela Lemmo (University Federico II, Italy), Raffaele De Luca Picione (University “Giustino Fortunato” Benevento, Italy), Auriemma Ersilia (University Federico II, Italy), and Maria Francesca Freda (University Federico II, Italy)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 31
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8868-0.ch008
Abstract
The recent medical progress ensures high rates of long-term survival even in the face of illness previously with an unfortunate outcome: this is the case of breast cancer, which, to date, ensures more than 80% of long-term survival rates, and that for this reason can be interpreted as a chronic illness. In particular, the onset of breast cancer in under-50 women represents a potentially traumatic event that storms in the life of a young woman breaking the narrative sense of continuity, sameness, and integrity. This chapter discusses the role of narrative psychological devices for the understanding and the promotion of sense-making process and psychological adjustment to illness. Within a psychological risk preventive framework, the authors show findings from a longitudinal narrative research on the sense-making processes with breast cancer younger women highlighting narrative indexes of risks and resources during the first year of treatment. Implications for longitudinal support will be discussed.