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Part of
The Language of Crisis: Metaphors, frames and discourses
Edited by Mimi Huang and Lise-Lotte Holmgreen
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 87] 2020
► pp. 281–304

Chapter 10
Framing the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

Women’s experiences of changes in the body

Despite quantitative research showing differences between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) across genders, little research has qualitatively explored women’s experiences of the disorder. This chapter combines image schemas with illness narrative analysis to explore how women with OCD link the onset of the disorder to traumatic changes in their bodies that are experienced as a crisis. It is argued that the bodily changes disrupt the image schemas that provide stable conceptualisations of the body. The disintegration of the stable body leads to conceptualisations of OCD that, to various degrees, frame OCD as an attempt to regain control over the changed body. Thus, the women make sense of OCD onset by connecting it to personal crises and relationships within specific sociocultural contexts.

Keywords: obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD, women, onset, traumatic events, embodiment, illness narratives, image schemas, qualitative, discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Moving beyond medical approaches
    • 2.1Medical definitions of mental health disorders
    • 2.2Sociocultural and individual contexts in OCD
  • 3.Cognitive linguistics, embodiment and mental health
    • 3.1Conceptual metaphor theory and OCD
    • 3.2Image schemas and OCD
  • 4.Illness narratives
  • 5.Aims
  • 6.Methods
    • 6.1Ethical approval
    • 6.2Recruitment and participants
    • 6.3Data collection
    • 6.4Data selection and analysis
  • 7.Results and discussion
    • 7.1Narrative one: Angela
    • 7.2Narrative two: Lucy
    • 7.3Narrative three: Nicola
  • 8.Conclusions
    • 8.1Conclusions for OCD
    • 8.2Conclusions for image schemas
  • References
Published online: 16 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.87.10kna
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