Cancer Narratives and the Cancer Support Group

Abstract

We conceptualize the experience of cancer as requiring ‘biographical work’ and examine the nature of this work in the context of peer support groups. Interviews with participants and leaders of support groups were used to theorize the importance of support to cancer patients with varying stages and length of disease. Patient interviews led us to describe the process of joining, belonging, and identifying with, support groups as an important process within patients’ ongoing biographical work and encompassing a search for a ‘separate social space’. We discuss the implications for understanding the stigmatizing nature of cancer and the ‘civic life’ these groups support.