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Structuring and destructuring the coarse of illness: the Alzheimer's disease experience
Author(s) -
Gubrium Jaber F.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9566.1987.tb00034.x
Subject(s) - structuring , developmentalism , disease , psychology , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , cognitive science , medicine , political science , pathology , politics , law
The course of illness is examined as a location for the assignment of developmental structure. Textual analysis and field data indicate that the stock of developmental codes for structuring the course of illness in the Alzheimer's disease experience is as varied as the manifold interests of those concerned. Structuring is practical and occasioned, realised in its variety in an ‘ameliorative’ mode of communicative usage. In the ‘tribulation’ mode, in contrast, the course of illness is destructured. A discussion of communicative usage, as a critique of developmentalism, follows.