Shelter from the storm; men with chronic pain and narratives from the rehabilitation clinic
Patient Education and Counselling, 08/20/2012
Clinical Article
Ahlsen B et al. – As rehabilitation clinics may provide a legitimate space in which men's experiences of pain are ‘housed’, they may constitute significant sources for restitution work, as well as significant shelters against social accusation that they are not really sick.
Methods- The material consists of qualitative interviews with 10 Norwegian men with chronic neck pain, and was analyzed using narrative method, combined with a gender sensitive perspective.
- With references to ‘identification of a cause’ and ‘rebuilding physical strength’, the significance of medical expertise initially seemed to be linked to restoring bodily function.
- In the men's individual lives, however, the meaning of being in rehabilitation extended far beyond achieving manifest treatment goals and was also linked to profound human needs, such as to (re)build a self, to be comforted and connected to others.
