ArticleCulture, medicine and psychiatry2012
Remaking the self: trauma, teachable moments, and the biopolitics of cancer survivorship.
Article in Culture, medicine and psychiatry, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The effectiveness of physical activity interventions using activity trackers during or after inpatient care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2022Pooled it
- Feasibility, acceptability, and effects of behavior change interventions for improving multiple dietary behaviors among cancer survivors: a systematic review.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2022Pooled it
- Living with and beyond cancer with comorbid illness: a qualitative systematic review and evidence synthesis.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2019Pooled it
- Trial
- Physical activity interventions in women treated for endometrial cancer: a scoping review.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2025Review
- Diet-related awareness and behaviours in cancer survivors compared with non-cancer individuals: a pooled analysis of the HINTS study.Public health nutrition · 2025Article
- Enrolling the body as active agent in cancer treatment: Tracing immunotherapy metaphors and materialities.Social studies of science · 2024Article
- A Discourse of Deviance: Blame, Shame, Stigma and the Social Construction of Head and Neck Cancer.Qualitative health research · 2024Article
- The Nine Cancer Frames: A Tool to Facilitate Critical Reading of Cancer-Related Information.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2022Article
- Post-diagnostic health behaviour scores in relation to fatal prostate cancer.British journal of cancer · 2022Article
- "Teachable Moment": Effects of an Educational Program on Knowledge and Quality of Life of Korean Breast Cancer Survivors.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2022Article
- Cancer-related psychosocial factors and self-reported changes in lifestyle among gynecological cancer survivors: cross-sectional analysis of PROFILES registry data.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2022Article
- In their own words: A narrative analysis of illness memoirs written by men with prostate cancer.Sociology of health & illness · 2022Article
- Reanimating the Body: Comics Creation as an Embodiment of Life with Cancer.Culture, medicine and psychiatry · 2021Article
- Experiencing Cancer. An Ethnographic Study on Illness and Disease.Recent results in cancer research. Fortschritte der Krebsforschung. Progres dans les recherches sur le cancer · 2021Article
- Online accounts of gene expression profiling in early-stage breast cancer: Interpreting genomic testing for chemotherapy decision making.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2019Article
- Article
- Toward equitably high-quality cancer survivorship care.Canadian oncology nursing journal = Revue canadienne de nursing oncologique · 2019Article
- Before narrative: episodic reading and representations of chronic pain.Medical humanities · 2018Article
- Carer Experience Supporting Someone With Dementia and Cancer: A Narrative Approach.Qualitative health research · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
As numerous scholars have noted, cancer survivorship is often represented in popular discourse as providing an opportunity for a physical, emotional, and spiritual makeover. However, this idea that cancer enables the self to be remade on all levels is also increasingly evoked in the field of psychosocial oncology. Exploring cancer survivorship as a biopolitical phenomenon, I focus on two concepts that have become central to understandings of the disease: the "teachable moment" and "post-traumatic growth." Drawing primarily on representations of cancer survivorship in the clinical literature, I suggest that cancer is increasingly seen to present a unique opportunity to catalyze the patient's physical and psychological development. In this framework, the patient can no longer be relied upon to transform him or herself: this change must be externally driven, with clinicians taking advantage of the trauma that cancer entails to kick-start the patient into action. Broadening my analysis to the concepts of "trauma" and "development" writ large, I go on to suggest that survivorship discourse seems to partake of a larger and relatively recent meta-narrative about development-both individual and societal--and the positive opportunity that trauma is seen to present to stimulate reconstruction on a grand scale.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.