The Normal You: Chest Wall Deformities According to Teenagers’ Life Stories
In: Pain without Boundaries: Inquiries across CulturesSearch for other papers by Davide Ticchi in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Nowadays, the concept of pain has been remodelled due to certain pathologies, such as chest wall deformities (CWDs), obesity, and other conditions that may lower one’s body-esteem. Thus, an increased number of surgeons propose new procedures to correct physical stigmas, positively influencing the self-confidence and wellbeing of patients. ‘Among the therapeutic armamentarium, nowadays classical techniques and new approaches make us able to choose the more appropriate for the single patient, according to the surgeon’s experience and preference but in particular tailoring the treatment on the individual clinical and psychological needs. A multidisciplinary approach is advisable in order to manage CWDs in all their complexity.’ Thus, specialised medical anthropologists understand both patients who take their body’s look as a social deviation, and those who consider it an integrative aspect of their personhood. Because of the high stakes of surgery, throughout the preoperative phase specialists assess the motivations and expectations of deformed patients. In this chapter, I explore narratives of body image disturbance among teenagers, illustrating how the expertise of medical anthropologists may provide them with more insight into their own self-consciousness.