SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN LIFE BY TAKING PART IN DRAMA. Cover Image

SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN LIFE BY TAKING PART IN DRAMA.
SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN LIFE BY TAKING PART IN DRAMA.

THE PERSPECTIVE OF MENTEES OF THE FIGHT CANCER ACADEMY IN TORUŃ

Author(s): Jacek Mianowski, Magdalena Gajewska, Małgorzata Rębiałkowska-Stankiewicz
Subject(s): Sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwa AGH
Keywords: cancer; noetic dimension; dramatherapy; experiencing an illness; sense of an illness

Summary/Abstract: The situation of an illness is often interpreted as an adverse change in a person’s situation, which is connected to various kinds of burdens like pain, reliance on the healthcare system, hospitalisation, and psychological stress. When analysing the situation of a patient, scrutiny of their spiritual situation through which human intentionality and hence the striving for meaning, value and purpose is manifest, seems called for. This presentation will introduce the empirical and axiological framework of the experience of cancer and the search for its meaning expressed through the performing arts, where people with cancer become playwrights and actors. The studies were conducted among the mentees of the Fight Cancer Academy in Toruń. The research methodology entailed textual analysis and a panel interview. Based on the results obtained, we compare the patients’ image of the disease, along with the meanings they attribute to it, with the image of the disease within a wider, cultural discourse.

  • Issue Year: 17/2018
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 61-78
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: English