scholarly journals Health as Experience: Exploring Health in Daily Life Drawing From the Work of Aaron Antonovsky and John Dewey

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 1004-1018
Author(s):  
Ninitha Maivorsdotter ◽  
Joacim Andersson

Research has pursued salutogenic and narrative approaches to deal with questions about how everyday settings are constitutive for different health practices. Healthy behavior is not a distinguishable action, but a chain of activities, often embedded in other social practices. In this article, we have endeavored to describe such a chain of activities guided by the salutogenic claim of exploring the good living argued by McCuaig and Quennerstedt. We use biographical material written by Karl Ove Knausgaard who has created a life story entitled My Struggle. The novel is selected upon an approach influenced by Brinkmann who stresses that literature can be seen as a qualitative social inquiry in which the novelist is an expert in transforming personal life experiences into common human expressions of life. The study illustrates how research with a broader notion of health can convey experiences of health, thereby complementing (and sometimes challenging) public health evidence.

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maiara Suelen Mazera ◽  
Maria Itayra Coelho de Souza Padilha ◽  
Adriana Dutra Tholl ◽  
Soraia Dornelles Schoeller ◽  
Maria Manuela Ferreira Pereira da Silva Martins

Abstract Objective: To understand the life story of university students and the adjustment of living with motor deficiency. Method: A qualitative research, developed with eight university students with motor deficiency. Data collect was performed between October 2016 and March 2017. Thematic data analysis was used. Results: Two categories emerged: family as safe harbor and extra-family relationships: weaknesses and strengths. Family and friends were fundamental for facing disability, standing out for their support and affection. Friends have been encouraged to overcome the limitations and difficulties. Extra-family life was exposed to prejudice that resulted in fears and traumas. Conclusion: The impact of motor deficiency on daily life is the result of life experiences. Healthy family relationships, along with strong bonds of friendship, made the difficulties found in the daily life of these students smoother.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Yuniar Fatmasari

This study reveals the ideological strategies the dominant takes to exploit Black enslaved women’s womb experienced by the characters in Toni Morrison’s Beloved as well as their resistance. Written in 1987, the novel is set eight years after the end of the Civil War in time painful experiences during slavery era are still there in the mind of ex-enslaved Black women and men. The novel narrates the past through personal life experiences presented by Sethe and Baby Suggs. During slavery era, their bodies are not merely used to work in the plantation area but since they are women, their wombs are valuable commodity providing advantages and profit to the masters. To make it possible, the dominant function ideological strategies to control the Black enslaved women’s wombs. Therefore, this study tries to explore how the ideological strategies are practiced in the novel. According to Collins, creating negative images such as mammy, breeder woman, and jezebel addresses to the bodies of Black enslaved women belongs to ideological strategy which is more powerful compared to theeconomic and politic strategy. Each image covers dominant interest to control Black women’s womb under new-progressive capitalism in United States. The result of the study shows that those three images works effectively to control the Black enslaved women, even nowadays, those images are still there in the body of young generation of Black women and provide another form of womb’scontrol. However, the study as well finds out that the resistance toward the oppression is also varied. Self-definition is presumed to be a fundamental element to the journey of internalized oppression to the ‘free mind’ which eventually leads to the action of resistance. With this self-definition, Blackwomen begin to deny the existed negative images controlling their wombs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Yuniar Fatmasari

This study reveals the ideological strategies the dominant takes to exploit Black enslaved women’s womb experienced by the characters in Toni Morrison’s Beloved as well as their resistance. Written in 1987, the novel is set eight years after the end of the Civil War in time painful experiences during slavery era are still there in the mind of ex-enslaved Black women and men. The novel narrates the past through personal life experiences presented by Sethe and Baby Suggs. During slavery era, their bodies are not merely used to work in the plantation area but since they are women, their wombs are valuable commodity providing advantages and profit to the masters. To make it possible, the dominant function ideological strategies to control the Black enslaved women’s wombs. Therefore, this study tries to explore how the ideological strategies are practiced in the novel. According to Collins, creating negative images such as mammy, breeder woman, and jezebel addresses to the bodies of Black enslaved women belongs to ideological strategy which is more powerful compared to theeconomic and politic strategy. Each image covers dominant interest to control Black women’s womb under new-progressive capitalism in United States. The result of the study shows that those three images works effectively to control the Black enslaved women, even nowadays, those images are still there in the body of young generation of Black women and provide another form of womb’scontrol. However, the study as well finds out that the resistance toward the oppression is also varied. Self-definition is presumed to be a fundamental element to the journey of internalized oppression to the ‘free mind’ which eventually leads to the action of resistance. With this self-definition, Blackwomen begin to deny the existed negative images controlling their wombs.


Author(s):  
Ram Prasad Rai

The term ‘displacement’ has a strong connection with diaspora literature that studies the experiences of pain and pleasure of the people in the diaspora. People in the diaspora do not have comfortable life. Since they are away from their homeland, it is not easy for them to get integrated into the new main stream society. Because of several variations such as language, culture, custom, religion, belief etc., they are to face difficulties in the host-land. They come across the feeling of displacement through alienation, homelessness, identity crisis etc. that are interconnected in the diaspora. Being a generation of indentured labor immigrant family, V. S. Naipaul himself has gone through such paining experiences that are indirectly expressed through the life experiences of the characters in his writing. While reading about Naipaul’s life story and of Mr. Biswas in the novel A House for Mr. Biswas, it can be understood that they sound similar strongly. In the novel, Naipaul shows how Mr. Biswas more importantly along with other people as the generation of indentured labour immigrant parents in Trinidad suffer from homelessness, displacement, alienation etc. This paper mainly focuses on the experiences of displacement along with homelessness, alienation etc. faced by Mr. Biswas and other characters as they are from Indian diasporic community.Crossing the Border: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 5(2) 2017: 25-30


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Hart ◽  
Deirdre Healy

Various theories have been put forward to explain the processes underpinning desistance from crime. To provide additional insights into this phenomenon, this article presents an autobiographical account of one man’s journey towards a crime-free life. The narrative reveals a change process that is at once personal and universal, and describes the external forces that shaped his pathway to desistance as well as his experiences of personal fortitude and agency. In addition, it highlights the role of probation supervision as a catalyst for change. The autobiographical account is accompanied by a reflective academic commentary that situates these personal life experiences within the wider desistance literature. While the reader may view the autobiographical tone of this article as subjective, it should be noted that the account is not simply a re-telling of an individual life story but offers a critical appraisal of existing knowledge viewed through the lens of one person’s journey towards desistance.


Author(s):  
Pam Morris

Persuasion overtly foregrounds the self as embodied: physical accidents and sickness are recurrent. Sir Walter Eliot’s belief in the time-defying bodily grace of nobility is subject to Austen’s harshest irony. The transition from vertically ordered place to horizontal space in Persuasion is more extreme than in any other of the completed novels. Anne Elliot’s movement from social exclusiveness to socially inclusive possibility allows Austen to challenge gender and class hierarchies traditionally held to be inborn. Her writerly experimentation expands the possibilities of narrative perspective to encompass the porous boundaries of the physical, the emotional and the rational that constitute any moment of consciousness. Her focalisation techniques in the text look directly towards Woolf’s stylist innovations. A chain of references to guns and shooting gathers into the novel contentious contemporary discursive networks on class relations, notions of masculinity and the nature of creaturely life.


Author(s):  
Yuriko Saito

This chapter argues for the importance of cultivating aesthetic literacy and vigilance, as well as practicing aesthetic expressions of moral virtues. In light of the considerable power of the aesthetic to affect, sometimes determine, people’s choices, decisions, and actions in daily life, everyday aesthetics discourse has a social responsibility to guide its power toward enriching personal life, facilitating respectful and satisfying interpersonal relationships, creating a civil and humane society, and ensuring the sustainable future. As an aesthetics discourse, its distinct domain unencumbered by these life concerns needs to be protected. At the same time, denying or ignoring the connection with them decontextualizes and marginalizes aesthetics. Aesthetics is an indispensable instrument for assessing and improving the quality of life and the state of the world, and it behooves everyday aesthetics discourse to reclaim its rightful place and to actively engage with the world-making project.


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 1470.2-1471
Author(s):  
M. Fusama ◽  
S. Oliver ◽  
H. Nakahara ◽  
Y. Van Eijk-Hustings ◽  
Y. Kuroe

Background:The course of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) differs from patient to patient, and each patient has a unique story. The disease condition affects psychological and social aspects, greatly affecting the quality of life. The disease course is unpredictable, and each patient’s story can be seen as a lifelong journey, full of ups and downs. Therefore, it is crucial to know what kind of support is required during the course of their life.Objectives:The aim of this study is to examine the life story of patients with RA and clarify a common situation in their stories in order to consider what kind of support is needed.Methods:This is a qualitative study using life story interview for patients with RA in Japan. Interview included disease history, patients’ behaviors, effects on daily life, the patients’ perspectives regarding psychological considerations and useful support. Data were analyzed using content analysis. This study was approved by the ethics committee and informed consent was obtained.Results:Eight patients participated in this study. They were all females and the average age was 57 years old. As a result of the categorization, we extracted the following eight situations: (1) Emergence of symptom; patients thought joint pain would go away, however, the symptom did not improve and began to affect their daily life and work, (2) Choose a hospital to visit; pain and anxiety have continued and decided to visit a hospital, (3) Encounter with their doctors; patients expected their doctor to relieve their pain, while they were afraid of being told that they were suffering from a serious disease. (4) Diagnosis of RA; patients were shocked when diagnosed and anxious about what would happen and wondered why they had such a disease, (5) Choice of treatment; patients were afraid of the side effects. They wanted to make a decision discussing with their doctor, but they could not understand the explanation about drugs well and, therefore, followed the doctor’s opinion. (6) Change of treatment; a biological agent was often recommended. Patients were also worried about side effects and the financial burden. (7) Remission or stable phase; they felt better mentally too, however, they often felt anxiety about disease flare, side effect of drugs and financial burden, and (8) Flare and remission; patients felt shocked and disappointed when RA flared, and then, they noticed that patients with RA had alternating periods of relapse and remission and they had to live with RA.These interviews revealed repeated worsening and improvement of symptoms and many similar repeated psychological reactions such as anxiety, shock, denial, conflict, acceptance, giving up and relief. To cope with these fluctuating disease and mental conditions, patients were supported by educational and psychological assistance, timely consultations, social life help from nurses and support from their family. The patients considered a trusting relationship with their doctors is necessary. The patients had also realized through their experience the importance of enhancing their own abilities, such as decision-making, prevention of infections and self-management skills. Moreover, they noticed that it is important to have their own goals including hobbies and work.Conclusion:This study elucidated the common behaviors of patients with RA, the impact of RA on their psychological state and daily and social life, and the required support. The psychological condition and daily and social life also had a great influence on medical behavior. Therefore, psychosocial support and establishment of trust between healthcare professionals and patients are crucial. In addition, improving patients’ self-management skills including self-efficacy and empowerment is also necessary. As patients with RA often feel anxious in various situations and expect nurses’ support, nurses should listen to patients, pay attention to their concerns and anxieties, and show a solution-oriented attitude. In order for patients to feel at ease in their Patient Journey, nurses should sail with them while maintaining a patient-centered perspective.Disclosure of Interests:None declared


2013 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. S310
Author(s):  
E. Komulainen ◽  
K. Meskanen ◽  
P. Jylhä ◽  
J. Lahti ◽  
E. Isometsä ◽  
...  
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