Material Discourses of Health and Illness

by Yardley,Lucy; Yardley,Lucy

• ISBN13: 9780415138246
• ISBN10: 0415138248
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1997-03-11
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Material Discourses of Health and Illnessapplies discursive approaches to the field of health psychology, in stark contrast to the bio-medical model of health and illness. The discursive approach uses the person's experience and feelings as the central focus of interest, whereas the more traditional models regarded this as coincidental and relatively unimportant. Lucy Yardley explores the way in which the meaning, context and consequences of bodily phenomena, ranging from sex to heart disease, are created and transformed by human activity. While the significance of bodily sensations and events is discursively negotiated, the material dimension of health is simultaneously shaped by government policy and media images, by the introduction of tests and treatment regimes, and by the promotion or prohibition of certain kinds of behavior. The book provides practical examples of how discursive approaches can be applied to the field of health psychology, ranging from eatingbehavior and childbirth, to dialysis, deafness and AIDS. Each chapter explains and justifies a different approach, reflecting on its practical utility as well as its limitations.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	vii
Preface and acknowledgements	ix
Introducing material-discursive approaches to health and illness	1	(24)
Lucy Yardley
Introducing discursive methods	25	(25)
Lucy Yardley
What role does the body have in illness?	50	(18)
Alan Radley
Interpretative phenomenological analysis and the psychology of health and illness	68	(24)
Jonathan A. Smith
Paul Flowers
Mike Osborn
Social and material ecologies for hearing impairment	92	(17)
William Noble
Disorientation in the (post) modern world	109	(23)
Lucy Yardley
The relationship between representational and materialist perspectives: AIDS and `the other'	132	(18)
Helene Joffe
Discourses and sexual health: providing for young people	150	(26)
Roger Ingham
Denise Kirkland
Discourses of pregnancy and childbirth	176	(23)
Anne Woollett
Harriette Marshall
Diet as a vehicle for self-control	199	(18)
Jane Ogden
Speaking the decorated body	217	(15)
John Soyland
Index	232