[Just a poster but I'm not sure I've seen papers on this topic. There are probably quite a lot of abstracts/posters on ME or CFS at http://abstracts.bps.org.uk that never made it to full papers]
http://bit.ly/laR3R5 i.e.
http://abstracts.bps.org.uk/index.c...view&frmShowSelected=true&localAction=details
http://bit.ly/laR3R5 i.e.
http://abstracts.bps.org.uk/index.c...view&frmShowSelected=true&localAction=details
Conference Proceedings
Abstract Details
2007 Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference
Conference Venue: University of Nottingham Division of Health Psychology (DHP)
From: 09 Dec 2007
To: 14 Sep 2007
Poster(s)
'It's just a bit of a lose, lose situation'. A discursive account of the male experience of ME K. Butlin De Montfort University
R. Chapman
De Montfort University
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is a chronic, debilitating condition
affecting around 240,000 people in the UK. The illness is extremely
controversial because of the debate over its validity as a physical illness.
Research to date mostly focuses on women's accounts of ME and this study
aims to redress this balance by providing an analysis of how men diagnosed
with ME talk about the everyday management of living with their illness. Six
semi-structured interviews were conducted producing approximately nine hours
of data. Recorded interviews were fully transcribed, coded for dominant
themes and analysed using discourse analysis. Three key themes were selected
for analysis; how men attend to their masculinity; how they attended to
issues relating to their work, and; how they managed everyday social
interactions.
This study provides a unique insight into how men talk about and construct
the effects of ME on their lives. In particular, men construct accounts,
which attend to how the illness threatens their masculinity, how they are
alienated from doing normal mundane activities as a consequence of the
physical limitations of the illness and how everyday social interactions are
difficult to manage. They also attend to the dilemma of being unable to
return to work by justifying and constructing themselves as hardworking men,
who subscribe to a traditional strong work ethic. It is proposed that the
findings of this study could enhance the medical professions understanding
of men who report with ME symptoms and could also inform medical
practitioners in the development of therapy and rehabilitation programmes.