The Solace of an Uncertain Future: Acute Illness, the Self, and Self‐Care

• Author: Miranda Worthen,Kaethe Weingarten
• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12347
• Published date: 01 June 2018

The Solace of an Uncertain Future: Acute Illness,

the Self, and Self-Care

KAETHE WEINGARTEN*

,†

MIRANDA WORTHEN

‡

To read this article in Spanish, please see the article’s Supporting Information on Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/famp).

“Take care of yourself” may be one of the most ubiquitous phrases spoken to people who

are ill or to their caretakers. Yet few people who offer it as a balm consider what the self

experience is of the person to whom the injunction is offered. We unravel some of the para-

doxes inherent in the phrase, illustrating complexities that arise in the context of a life-

threatening diagnosis. To illustrate the relational nature of the self, we analyze a partial

transcript of an interview conducted in 1988 with the authors—a family therapist mother

who had recently undergone surgery for breast cancer and her then 9-year-old dau ghter.

We also examine the role of time in the interview. We propose that unlike PTSD when the

past invades the present, in life-threatening illness the future is foreclosed, leading to dis-

tortions in current perception and behavior. The second author present s a follow-up to the

interview and relates it to her current experience as a mother with chronic health issues.

We close with suggestions for clinicians.

Keywords: The Self; Life-Threatening Illness; Self-Care; Time; Trauma

Fam Proc 57:572–586, 2018

...It is likely that some troubles will befall us; but it is not a present fact. How often has the unex-

pected happened!How often has the expected never come to pass!And even though it is ordained

to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering? You will suffer soon enough, when it

arrives; so look forward meanwhile to better things. What shall you gain by doing this? Time.

Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

INTRODUCTION

Outside of our dreams, rarely does one stumble upon a view of oneself thirty years prior

in the midst of one of the most painful moments of one’s life. I did. In 2013, packing

up our home of 38 years to move from Boston to Berkeley where our children and their

families now live, I found a VHS tape of a 1988 interview with my then 9-year-old dau gh-

ter, Miranda, conducted by a dear friend and respected colleague. The interview took place

at his therapy office 8 days after I had undergone surgery for breast cancer.

The themes in the interview—abstracted, of course, from the concrete situations that

we talk about—are ones that have occupied me in writing for thirty years, much of which

*The Witnessing Project, Berkeley, CA.

†

Walking-in-Witness Project, Berkeley, CA.

‡

Department of Health Science and Recreation, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kaethe Weingarten, The Witnessing

Project, 2587 Hilgard Ave. Berkeley, CA 94709 Berkeley, CA. E-mail: kaethew@gmail.com.

572

Family Process, Vol. 57, No. 2, 2018 ©2018 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12347