An individual’s identity reflects who they are, and also reflect the world in which they live. Individuals differ from each other with respect to their self-defining life stories in ways that are not unlike how they differ from each other on more conventional psychological characteristics such as traits, motives, intelligence, and so forth (Dodge, Ospina, & Foldy, 2005;McAdams, 2001). This gives researchers a more unique and narrowed view of an individual’s life experience in relation to a specific event and how it may correlate with others who have also experienced the same specific event, such as a chronic illness (Laranjeira, …show more content…
Being diagnosed with a chronic illness, such as cancer, can have critical outcomes that have negative effects of oneself (Laranjeira, 2013). To have a clear understanding of the negative effects, cancer narratives of illness experiences “can bridge the gap between cancer and the world of technology and treatment” (Kreuter et al., 2007;Laranjeira, 2013, p. 469). Although cancer is not a new illness, during the past decades, the cases of cancer have increased significantly, with attention on environmental problems, changes in lifestyles and work conditions (Dodge, Ospina, & Foldy, 2005;Laranjeira, 2013). Therefore, through cancer narratives, science can meet life experiences in an attempt to better understand and help patients to control their illness (Kreuter et al.,