Searching for the new normal: exploring the role of language and metaphors in becoming a cancer survivor

Abstract

Purpose: This qualitative exploratory study was grounded in local patient and service user experiences and was designed to investigate how the language and metaphors of cancer influence personal and social adjustment after completion of a course of treatment.

Methods: The study employed a focus group design, in which eighteen people, recruited through regional networks and support groups, participated. Meetings elicited participants' stories and focused discussion on key words and common phrases in the cancer lexicon. Data from transcribed focus group recordings were analysed thematically and organised into descriptive categories concerned with the interpretations of common terms and how these influenced the management of identity and emotions.

Results: The thematic categories emphasised the importance of language in the way participants managed their illness and sought to control their feelings and their interactions with others. Interpretation of findings revealed a strong central idea linking participants' accounts, which was that language, metaphor and euphemism are central to adjustment and the forging of an altered identity as a survivor of cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Conclusions: The findings are consistent with what is already known about the language and metaphors of cancer, with language being an important mechanism for managing uncertainty. From participants' accounts it also appears that there may be subtle but important differences in professional and lay understandings of cancer language and metaphor. This suggests a need for oncology nurses to elaborate their broad understanding of communication skills and move toward a more detailed understanding of the language used during interactions with patients.

Keywords: Cancer language; Focus group method; Metaphor; Oncology nursing; Survivor; Survivorship.