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16 - Personal Accounts of Living with Schizophrenia across a Lifetime: Coping Strategies and Subjective Perspectives

from Section 5 - Treatment and Services

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2019

By
Tova Band-Winterstein ,
Hila Avieli  and
Peli Mushkin
Edited by
Carl I. Cohen  and
Paul D. Meesters
Carl I. Cohen
Affiliation:
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Paul D. Meesters
Affiliation:
Friesland Mental Health Services
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Summary

This chapter provides an in-depth perspective of the subjective experience of ageing individuals with schizophrenia. Phenomenological in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 patients and revealed the following themes: (1) Narrating schizophrenia: "Why did this happen to me?"; (2) Schizophrenia: Figure or background and coping with lifelong mental illness; (3) Between adversity and personal growth: Meaning-making and Aging with schizophrenia; (4) Ageing individuals with schizophrenia: Searching for a voice. Personal accounts of living with schizophrenia across a lifetime through biography, life changes, and subjectivity, including a sense of recovery and growth, as well as adversity shows a heterogenic picture that is depicted using a phenomenological approach.
Type
Chapter
Information
Schizophrenia and Psychoses in Later Life
New Perspectives on Treatment, Research, and Policy
 , pp. 200 - 211
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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