| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1081971 | Journal of Aging Studies | 2012 | 13 Pages |
Little is understood about how experiencing cancer and aging together can disrupt people's socio-personal worlds and lead to existential questions about identity, life ambiguity, and death. Toward this end, we interpreted the metaphors that three aging men with cancer used in a focus group to describe their existential concerns. We also considered how two dominant cultural discourses around cancer and aging, generally referred to as discourses of “progress” and “decline”, figured into the participants' meanings. Finally, we compared the men's attitudes toward cancer and aging to dominant ideas about how men respond to these life events. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis, informed by critical phenomenology, we came to three conclusions. First, the men's interpretations of cancer and aging shared similar existential themes of tragedy and transcendence. Second, these existential concerns were informed by dominant discourses of cancer and aging, in that they followed the culturally constructed trajectories of decline and progress, respectively. The men's metaphors point to a negotiation of these two discourses. A third and related point is that the men predominantly contradicted gendered assumptions about dealing with life adversity but in some ways repeated them. This research indicates that people interpret cancer and aging in somewhat shared ways, via dominant cultural discourses, but also in individual ways depending on personal life histories. As discourses and life histories seem to influence how people make sense of aging life with cancer, it may be useful to be aware of these contexts when providing psycho-social care to aging cancer patients.
► We study metaphors of three men and dominant discourses about cancer and aging. ► We look at their existential concerns as shaped by personal and cultural contexts. ► The men negotiated dominant discourses into shared but individual metaphors. ► The men resisted and repeated gendered discourses about facing existential concerns. ► Psychosocial oncologists need to consider these contexts when providing care.
