Through the lens of relationship: Young adult women make meaning of health and illness

This dissertation examines how ten young (emerging) adult women (ages 18--24) perceive and construct meaning of health and illness experiences. Through a series of in-depth, open-ended, and semi-structured interviews conducted over a period of eighteen months, participants discuss developing views of self in relationship to health and illness, body identity, health promoting and health defeating practices, illness diagnosis, and their interactions with the US health care system. Views of the young (emerging) adult female self as healthy or unhealthy are described through health behaviors, health related decision-making, and engagement in informal and traditional health care relationships.; Situated in grounded theory, feminist research methods, and informed by interpretive poetics, this dissertation discusses the importance of understanding the intersection between health, illness, and identity on one hand, and the social, behavioral and psychological negotiations young adult women undertake toward their pursuit of a "healthy self" on the other. The mediating role of relationship, as viewed through the lens of relational theory and a relationship-centered framework is interrogated.; Implications for the care of young (emerging) adult women in the context of the health care system and health care relationships underscores the importance of engaging in dialogue on perceptions of body image, health promoting and defeating practices, sexual health, and mental health issues, and the meanings women ascribe to a sense of a "healthy self." Providing safe relational-spaces to enable young women to voice their views of self, their bodies, and the private and public worlds they inhabit will allow clinicians, health educators, and those who work with young (emerging) adult women to more fully communicate about and understand health beliefs, health practices, and health decisions in which they engage. Approaching health care and health research with young (emerging) adult women from a feminist biopsychosocial or relationship-centered care model is discussed throughout this dissertation.