Chronic headache may be the most frequently reported
somatic symptom, yet it puzzles health experts and poses a
considerable treatment challenge. It was suggested that this
is because conventional views of headache, adhering to a
Newtonian-Cartesian epistemology, focus almost exclusively on
intrapsychic factors ignoring the wider social context in which
the problem is embedded. An overview of the existing body of
knowledge on the most widely researched headache conditions was
presented, and it was argued that a conceptual shift is
required to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the
problem.
This study was conducted within an holistic, ecosystemic
epistemology. A qualitative approach employing a case study
method was adopted to provide rich descriptions of the contexts
in which two chronic headache sufferers' symptoms were
embedded. The case study presentations also illustrated the
attempts that were made to intervene into the headache contexts
from a second-order cybernetics stance. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/17602 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Rawsthorne, Julie Karen |
| Contributors | Fourie DP |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | 1 online resource (205 leaves) |
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