Cancer as a personal construing: a qualitative research

Within a constructivist framework and referring to Kelly’s personal construct psychology in particular our aim was to understand cancer in terms of anticipation exploring how a person construes him/herself. Ten cancer patients aged between 50 and 74 with different type and stage of cancer participated in a one hour individual narrative interview. We did a qualitative analysis of each transcript and grouped the themes in five areas: self construction, life story, validational experience, breaking experience, meaning of illness. We found recurrent experiences of loss and guilt with a subsequent attempt to narrow their own perceptual field in order to minimize apparent incompatibilities with their own core role (constriction). At a biological level this process would have generated cancer. We explored the implications of this perspective in psychological treatment of cancer patients and in mind-body problem.