Anna-Liisa Närvänen

Women’s Experiences of Stigma in Relation to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia:

Chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia are characterized by being difficult to diagnose and having an elusive etiology and no clear-cut treatment strategy. The question of whether these illnesses are stigmatizing was investigated through interviews with 25 women with these illnesses. The women experienced stigmatization primarily before receiving a diagnosis, and the diffuse symptomatology associated with the illnesses were significant for stigmatization. Stigma consisted of questioning the veracity, morality, and accuracy of patient symptom descriptions and of psychologizingsymptoms. Coping with stigma was also explored and found to comprise both withdrawal and approach strategies, depending on the individual’s circumstances and goals.

Ideal versus reality: physicians perspectives on patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia

Encountering patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or fibromyalgia can cause dilemmas for physicians due to the uncertainty inherent in these illnesses. The aim of this study was to investigate: (1). How physicians in a Swedish sample describe and categorize patients with CFS and fibromyalgia; (2). What the character of CFS and fibromyalgia, with regard to diagnosing, treatment and medical knowledge/aetiology, mean to the physicians in encounters with patients; and (3). Which strategies physicians describe that they use in the encounter with these patients. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 26 physicians, specialists in various fields who all had some experience of either CFS or fibromyalgia. The results suggest that there is a discrepancy between the ideal role of the physician and reality in the everyday work in interaction with these patients. This may lead to the professional role being questioned. Different strategies are developed to handle the encounters with these patients. The results also illuminate the physicians interpretations of patients in moralising terms. Conditions given the status of illness were regarded, for example, as less serious by the physicians than those with disease status. Scepticism was expressed regarding especially CFS, but also fibromyalgia. Moreover, it is shown how the patients are characterised by the physicians as ambitious, active, illness focused, demanding and medicalising. The patient groups in question do not always gain full access to the sick-role, in part as a consequence of the conditions not being defined as diseases.

Patient Power and Control: A Study of Women with Uncertain Illness Trajectories

The authors interviewed 12 women diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and 13 with fibromyalgia with the aim of determining the strategies they perceive themselves as using to gain control over their situation during the health care process. The results highlight various strategies that the women report applying to find a way of managing the illness and to influence caregivers. They describe, for example, how they try to gain control over their situation by acquiring knowledge about the illness. The women also describe various power strategies they use in their interaction with the caregivers to take command of their situation, namely exiting, noncompliance, confrontation, persuasion/insistence, making demands, and demonstrative distancing.

Childhood as generation or life phase

During the last few decades a view of childhood as a generation has been introduced within what is called ‘new childhood studies’. Childhood as a structural and structuring concept, with methodological emphasis on studies on the aggregated level, is proposed by one of the main proponents of this view, Jens Qvortrup, while another perspective, here represented by Leena Alanen, takes Mannheim’s theoretical work on generations as a point of departure. These two points of view have had an impact on the new childhood studies, but at the same time they have not been made subject to critical discussion and are, thus, uncontested. There are, however, several conceptual as well as methodological issues and problems that should be discussed with regard to both perspectives. Issues raised in this article are, for example, the multiple meanings of the term ‘generation’ and the inherent problems in Mannheim’s conceptualization and its proposed use in childhood studies. Finally we discuss whether concepts like ‘life phase’ within life course research, and ‘age category’would be more clear and applicable than the proposed uses of ‘generation’, considering the theoretical interests behind this research.

Changing Worlds and the Ageing Subject. : Dimensions in the Study of Ageing and Later Life

Considers the humanistic-historical dimension of ageing and substantiates new perspectives on family roles and intergenerational relationships. Also examines age discrimination, the impact of the i ...

Co-Producing Children's Sociality in Parent–Teacher Conferences

The aim of this article is to describe how parents and preschool teachers talk about childrens interactional skills in parent–teacher conferences in the Swedish preschool and how this can be related to socialization processes. The analyses show that childrens communicative skills, such as turn-taking in conversation and co-operation, are considered as important for both parents and teachers and talked about in terms of trouble or success. Childrens skills are often assessed by using chronological age as a parameter. Our analysis suggests that the talk about childrens interactional skills may be interpreted in terms of deficiency discourses founded primarily on theories in developmental psychology, and that parents, and particularly the teachers, present themselves as socializing agents with regard to children.