The Creation of a Natural Sense: The Self-Construction of Children with Congenital Heart Disease by Body-image

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the process through which children with congenital heart disease (CHD) construct a body-image throughout their childhood. The research participants were 21 persons with CHD. The subjects were asked about their childhood recollections regarding their bodies. The taped and transcribed interview data was analyzed using a grounded theory approach.
It was found that the construction of body-image was a process of “creation of a natural sense,” involving a reconstruction of one's own natural sense from one's earliest recollections. This process was based in the “natural sense of one's earliest recollections.” When the subjects began moving into their peer groups, they found that their bodily sense was a new physical-mental-social experience of “experiencing dissatisfaction,” followed by a process of “attempting to assimilate,” “struggling with a dilemma,” and “exercising an embodied power of adjustment,” which was changed and modified into a “reconstruction of one's own natural sense.” The subjects created a self-image through their social life depending on a body-image based on an internal sense of their own body. It was suggested that in order for a child to develop a stable sense of self, it was necessary to understand one's own body appropriately, to be accepted by others, to gain a feeling of relief, to attain a sense of control, to carry out interactions with others, to move closer to one's own ideal image, and to have a feeling that one can adapt to the environment.