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Stenner P, De Luca Picione R. A Theoretically Informed Critical Review of Research Applying the Concept of Liminality to Understand Experiences with Cancer: Implications for a New Oncological Agenda in Health Psychology. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2023; 20:5982. [PMID: 37297586 PMCID: PMC10253067 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20115982] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2023] [Revised: 05/24/2023] [Accepted: 05/27/2023] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Liminality was described more than 20 years ago as a major category explaining how cancer is experienced. Since then, it has been widely used in the field of oncology research, particularly by those using qualitative methods to study patient experience. This body of work has great potential to illuminate the subjective dimensions of life and death with cancer. However, the review also reveals a tendency for sporadic and opportunistic applications of the concept of liminality. Rather than being developed in a systematic way, liminality theory is being recurrently 're-discovered' in relatively isolated studies, mostly within the realm of qualitative studies of 'patient experience'. This limits the capacity of this approach to influence oncological theory and practice. In providing a theoretically informed critical review of liminality literature in the field of oncology, this paper proposes ways of systematizing liminality research in line with a processual ontology. In so doing, it argues for a closer engagement with the source theory and data, and with more recent liminality theory, and it sketches the broad epistemological consequences and applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul Stenner
- School of Psychology and Counselling, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK;
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Cherba M, Brummans BHJM, Hier MP, Giguère L, Chartier G, Jacobs H, Forest VI, Mlynarek A, Sultanem K, Henry M. Framing Concerns about Body Image during Pre- and Post-Surgical Consultations for Head and Neck Cancer: A Qualitative Study of Patient–Physician Interactions. Curr Oncol 2022; 29:3341-3363. [PMID: 35621662 PMCID: PMC9139818 DOI: 10.3390/curroncol29050272] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2022] [Revised: 04/25/2022] [Accepted: 05/02/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Patients with head and neck cancer report high unmet psychosocial needs as they undergo lifesaving treatments that can significantly alter their appearance and cause functional impairments. This qualitative analysis of recordings of 88 pre- and post-surgical consultations involving 20 patients respond to the need for empirical studies of patient–provider conversations about body image concerns. It indicates that the emphasis on concerns about survival, cure, and physical recovery during clinical consultations may leave concerns about the impacts of surgery on appearance and function unexplored and even silenced. The interviews with patients and medical team members that complement the analysis of the recordings suggest that an emphasis on survival, cure, and physical recovery can respond to the need for reassurance in the context of serious illness. However, it can also be problematic as it contributes to the silencing of patients’ concerns and to a potential lack of preparedness for the consequences of surgery. The results of this study can contribute to raising surgeons’ awareness of the interactional dynamics during clinical consultations. Moreover, the results highlight the unique role that surgeons can play in validating patients’ psychosocial concerns to support patients’ rehabilitation in both physical and psychosocial domains.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Cherba
- Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
- Correspondence:
| | | | - Michael P. Hier
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada; (M.P.H.); (V.-I.F.); (A.M.)
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada
| | - Lauriane Giguère
- School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada;
| | - Gabrielle Chartier
- Department of Nursing, Oncology Division, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada;
| | - Hannah Jacobs
- Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada;
| | - Véronique-Isabelle Forest
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada; (M.P.H.); (V.-I.F.); (A.M.)
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada
| | - Alex Mlynarek
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada; (M.P.H.); (V.-I.F.); (A.M.)
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada
| | - Khalil Sultanem
- Division of Radiation Oncology, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada;
- Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada;
| | - Melissa Henry
- Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada;
- Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada
- Segal Cancer Centre, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada
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Hooker C, Kerridge I. Response-Liminality and the Mirage of Settlement. JOURNAL OF BIOETHICAL INQUIRY 2022; 19:55-60. [PMID: 35362921 PMCID: PMC8972730 DOI: 10.1007/s11673-021-10160-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2021] [Accepted: 12/19/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Little and colleagues' (1998) paper describing a key aspect of cancer patients' experience, that of "liminality," is remarkable for giving articulation to a very common and yet mostly overlooked aspect of patient experience. Little et. al. offered a formulation of liminality that deliberately set aside the concept's more common use in analysing social rituals, in order to grasp at the interior experience that arises when failing bodily function and awareness of mortality are forced into someone's consciousness, as occurs with a diagnosis of cancer. We set out the reasons as to why this analysis was so significant in 1998-but we also consider how the "liminality" described by Little and colleagues was (as they suggested) a feature of modernity, founded on what we term "the mirage of settlement." We argue that this mirage is impossible to sustain in 2022 amid the many forms of un-settling that have characterized late modernity, including climate change and COVID-19. We argue that many people in developed nations now experience liminality as a result of the being forced into the consciousness of living in a continued state of coloniality. We thus rejoin the social aspects of liminality to the interior, Existential form described by Little et. al.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claire Hooker
- Sydney Health Ethics, Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, A27 Room 107, Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia
| | - Ian Kerridge
- Sydney Health Ethics, Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, A27 Room 107, Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia
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