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Reviewed by:
  • Taking Charge of Breast Cancer
  • Barbara W. Sommer, Independent Scholar
Taking Charge of Breast Cancer. By Julia A. Ericksen . Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 319 pp. Hardbound, $55.97; Softbound, $23.95.

Until recently, the public rarely discussed cancer diagnoses and treatment. Breast cancer especially carried a stigma for women. That the only accepted treatment was invasive and disfiguring and that women were not active participants or partners in decisions regarding treatment certainly inhibited discussion. The situation slowly began to change after World War II. By the 1970s, medical advances had expanded treatment from radical mastectomy to a variety of options. Women began to speak out, many participating more actively in treatment decisions. Concurrently, the fight against the disease went public. Breast cancer foundations, pink ribbon stores, and other fund-raisers arose to support a search for a cure. Now, although not the most commonly diagnosed [End Page 271] cancer in the U.S., more than twice as much is spent on breast cancer research annually as on any other single type of cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research funding, accessed December 19, 2010).

Against this backdrop of medical advances and activism, sociologist Julie A. Ericksen, a breast cancer survivor, interviewed ninety-six women from varying backgrounds, diagnosed between 1994 and 1999, "to examine how women made sense of their breast cancer diagnosis and made decisions about their treatment" (10). Her interviewing goal was to learn how women not only struggled "to understand and respond to the crisis" but also made "difficult choices among an array of [treatment] options" (29). She prepared for the interviews through research in published materials, analyzing breast cancer messages in women's magazines, attending breast cancer treatment conferences and meetings for alternative therapies, and interviewing leaders of breast cancer service organizations (10). Her research and her own experience helped her shape questions that drew out her interviewees' descriptions of their experiences as they "journ[ied] through treatment and recovery" (30). The resulting interviews were "narratives [developed] to explain their [the interviewees'] cancer to themselves and others" (10).

Ericksen used the interview information to develop a theory about women's responses to a breast cancer diagnosis. In this classic sociological study, she identified four responses—which she labelled traditional responders, biomedical experts, religious responders, and alternative experts (35), each describing a way in which women coped with their diagnoses of a potentially fatal disease. She wrote a chapter about each response, analyzing what the women said against selected variables (race, ethnicity, age, income, education, and marital status). The final chapters of the book cover the impact of breast cancer surgery and reconstruction, the effect of breast cancer on the body in general, advances in breast cancer activism, education, and support, and Ericksen's conclusions. Footnotes and an extensive list of sources round things out. The chapter on advances is especially interesting in light of ongoing changes in treatments and public information.

Based on the interviews, Ericksen found that women separated themselves into the groups she identified. Women in two of the groups put their faith in "doctors, hospitals, and medicine," whereas those in the two remaining groups showed less faith in biomedicine (33). The first group of believers in biomedicine, traditional responders, thought doctors know best, so they rarely questioned a decision or recommendation. The second, dubbed biomedical experts, saw themselves "as responsible for their own health" and sought partnerships with medical personnel rather than deferring to them (34). Religious responders, one [End Page 272] of the groups with less faith in biomedicine, usually did what the doctors said but put their faith in God. Alternative experts, the final group, took charge of their recovery but replaced some of the standard medical treatments with alternative practices.

Ericksen's study and her use of first-person information to analyze responses to breast cancer is timely. She helps us understand how women respond to the diagnosis in an era of changing treatment options, increased support for women's involvement in their treatment, and public knowledge about the disease. The variety of responses documents women's increasingly active participation on all levels. Her focus on the...

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