TY -  JOUR
PY -  2020
SN -  1972-5620
T1 -  When the body is defective: An object relations informed narrative analysis of the illness experience of people affected by pulmonary hypertension
JO -  RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA 
DA -  12/15/2020 12:00:00 AM
DO -  10.3280/RIP2020-003002
UR -  http://www.francoangeli.it/Riviste/Scheda_rivista.aspx?idArticolo=67694
AU -  Caputo, Andrea
SP -  817
EP -  834
IS -  3
VL -  
LA -  EN
AB -  Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) can be considered as a paradigmat-ic disease for the understanding of repairing processes enacted to re-store internal regulation when the body is defective. The present study aims at providing an object relations informed narrative analy-sis of the illness experience of people affected by PH through a qualitative phenomenological analysis of the illness narratives of 12 adult Italian patients with PH. Four thematic areas (each consisting of three subthemes) were identified that respectively deal with pro-gressive stages of illness story: coping with early symptoms (mean-inglessness, minimization, self-blame), searching for a diagnosis (helplessness, burden, refusal of medical advice), reacting to diagno-sis (shock, resignation, acceptance of limitations) and facing the fu-ture (medical benefits, faith in God, support from patients’ associa-tions). Findings make a significant contribution to the exploration of people with PH’s several subjective challenges in coping with a de-fective body from symptom onset to after diagnosis.
PB -  FrancoAngeli
ER -