Be Careful with How You Use War Metaphors for Terminally Ill Patients with Cancer

Credit: www.independent.co.uk

According to an article on U.K.’s The Independent’s website, those with expertise in language and end-of-life care are saying that the standard media practice of describing “cancer as a ‘battle to be fought’ are leading to feelings or failure and guilt among terminally ill patients.” Researchers at the University of Lancaster in the United Kingdom came to the conclusion that “war metaphors were unhelpful” for the majority of cancer patients.

The study involved analysis of “1.5m words of discussion, representing the views of around 200 people closely involved with cancer care.”

Rather than imposing battle metaphors for those terminally ill, one of the researchers, Elena Semino, a professor of linguistics and verbal art, says that, “While talking about ‘fighting’ cancer could be useful for some, it should be for the patient themselves to introduce the metaphor.” The study involved analysis of “1.5m words of discussion, representing the views of around 200 people closely involved with cancer care.”

While battle metaphors might cause those facing terminal diagnoses to “end up feeling responsible for the fact that their illness cannot be treated,” these types of metaphors might work better for organizations trying to encourage people to donate money for research. On the contrary, “another common metaphor, comparing having cancer to a ‘journey’ was found to be less likely to lead to feelings of guilt or failure.”

As she puts it, “it had become a cliché to refer to someone who has died as ‘losing their battle against cancer’”, which can be far from true when there are “numerous examples of people who lived their lives to the full despite their cancer…made the idea of defeat inappropriate.”

Semino’s research has led her to work “with the NHS [The National Health Service in England] to produce a ‘metaphor manual’.” As she puts it, “it had become a cliché to refer to someone who has died as ‘losing their battle against cancer,’” which can be far from true when there are “numerous examples of people who lived their lives to the full despite their cancer [which] made the idea of defeat inappropriate.”

According to Semino, these changes in our vocabulary about cancer should happen sooner rather than later because “cancer is becoming, in many cases, more like a chronic disease. We all need to talk about cancer more as something that we can live with for some time, that we can have a good quality of life in spite of cancer – rather than just as an enemy to defeat.”