Experiential Approach/Illness Narrative
The experiential approach studies an illness as an individual experience influenced by culture. This approach is important in understanding how one experiences an illness and how they emotionally cope with the illness in light of their peers. The idea of the sick role comes into play during this approach simply put the sick role is how you cope with your illness and how you display the illness to others around you. The illness narrative is crucial to understanding how an individual relates disease experience to other members of their culture. There are three types of narrative, the restitution narrative, the chaos narrative, and the quest narrative. I chose to use an MTV true-life narrative about a woman suffering from HIV, it is a quest narrative. The quest narrative is a way to deal with an illness as part of an identity eventually resolving in some sort of outcome or resolution. The individual whose narrative I've taken has a strong personality and positive response to medication leading to an excellent narrative.
Stephanie is a young girl who suffers from HIV after contracting it from her boyfriend after he cheats on her. One of the first issues she addresses is how trust is hard to come by especially with sexual trust. Stephanie and her friends are now very conscience of the importance of safe sex. This quest for safe sex education has become part of her life, a personal crusade even. She works hard to make sure her and her friends get tested as well. The important thing to keep in mind with Stephanie's case is that she is not in some foreign country far or away or even from an uneducated low socio-economic standpoint. Culturally she is very close to the "norm" in the United States. Her case brings home the point that HIV can happen to anyone. We see her in her routine with friends hanging out and we see that she has a supportive family and friend structure. She has reached point of relative acceptance and still struggles at times with the changes in her life, such as the drugs and the changes in her relationships with others. As her friends support her she supports them in getting testing and education. As the narrative continues we see Stephanie's mom loving and supporting her yet still mothering her and making sure she is OK. Her mother shows concern and makes sure that her virus amounts and T-Cell count is OK. We see Stephanie moving through her testing process and becoming stronger with the positive news she receives as the drugs and treatments continue to work and her health improves. She adopts a new attitude of bring it on as opposed to letting the HIV control her life and who she is. We see her mother reflecting on Stephanie's progress and in a way the HIV actually brings the mother and daughter closer together even going so far to reassure her mother that she is doing well. She has morphed into an HIV advocate and has begun to lead a normal life even though she will have HIV all her life.
Bibliography
"I'm Positive," MTV True-life Video, December 12, 2012, http://www.mtv.com/videos/im-positive/1698 302/playlist.jhtml
"Image HIV Positive," MTV.com, http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/onair/im_positive/images/logo/456x330. jpg?quality=0.85
"Image Stephanie Brown," MTV.com, http://act.mtv.com/posts/guest-post-we-all-have-a-part-to-play-in-ending-the-hivaids-epidemic/
"I'm Positive," MTV True-life Video, December 12, 2012, http://www.mtv.com/videos/im-positive/1698 302/playlist.jhtml
"Image HIV Positive," MTV.com, http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/onair/im_positive/images/logo/456x330. jpg?quality=0.85
"Image Stephanie Brown," MTV.com, http://act.mtv.com/posts/guest-post-we-all-have-a-part-to-play-in-ending-the-hivaids-epidemic/