Mrs Jacqueline (Maria) Cochrane

Professional biography

A thread through my studies has been an interest in narrative, bodies, and health experiences, which evidenced the impact of societal norms of women’s experiences of the body and femininity.

My research project: ‘‘Re-storying the body, re-storying the self: women’s narratives of the changed body following mastectomy surgery builds on qualitative methodologies in health psychology, feminist psychology and social psychology. Experience of my previous projects underpinned the interest in the specific case of mastectomy experience as well as the relevant theoretical and methodological grounding. My current doctoral research develops this pathway to investigate how women make sense of the specific embodied experience of mastectomy.

The PhD research addresses a significant gap in psychological knowledge, through investigating women’s lived post-mastectomy experience, building on a qualitative narrative discursive approach from critical discursive psychology and narrative discursive psychology. My approach follows the theoretical underpinnings of work by Margaret Wetherell and Nigel Edley (1997), Stephanie Taylor (2006) and Kenneth Gergen’s social constructionism of language (Gergen, 1994). My interpretivist approach aims to explore the meanings and associations around mastectomy and post-mastectomy experience which are carried and negotiated through women’s language use. It is an analytic focus on language which sees language as evidence of social phenomenon beyond the individual and shared ideas which contribute to shaping the social world. The analysis aims to explore collective meanings from historical and cultural narratives and common sense, that are used and re-used within the talk of women who have had a mastectomy and their experience. This talk will also include the taking up of established ideas, existing narrative resources, subject positions and conflicts, contradictions and silence.

The project will build on and contribute to academic debates in feminist psychology on the objectification of women’s bodies, narrative psychological accounts of health and illness, and the social psychology of medicine. Research in this area will contribute greater understanding of how women cope with illness and treatment. The research findings will be relevant to academic psychology and education, and to breast cancer patients and survivors, and professionals that work with them.

I have delivered lectures on topics relevant to the research, so welcome opportunities to contribute to current perspectives on women’s health both in academia and research. 

I am currently on the FASS AFHEA Student PhD Teaching Scheme, where I assist on the DD317 Advanced Social Psychology module as a Teaching Associate at the Open University. This is an area I wish to develop further.

The research is currently at the writing up stage. I have presented my research both at a national and international level. My most recent presentations were held at Warwick University at the BSA Medical Conference and at the University of Westminster at the Inspiring Narratives Conference. I plan to look for opportunities to attend and present at further conferences on research methods, narrative and on health research. This will build network and academic connections, and knowledge exchange.  

Alongside my dissertation, I plan to write and have the research published in health or academic journals (BACP, RCN OR BMA) or books. I would also pursue the opportunity of carrying out a written collaboration (through further research) with other academics on an interest in female health.

Following the completion of my PhD, I plan to undertake a Fellowship at the Open University with a view to investiage aspects of the research further, with the aim of having this published in health or academic journals. 

I was awarded a ESRC GUDTP PhD studentship from the Open University and Oxford University for the undertaking of a Psychology PhD Qualitative Research project exploring women’s narratives of post-mastectomy experience.

I was awarded an MSc scholarship for academic excellence and went on to achieve a commendation for outstanding performance, having achieved straight A’s and Distinctions at the University of Northampton.

I was awarded a Certificate of Commendation for achieving 1st Class Honours based on an overall mean grade A in BSc Psychology and Counselling degree and its modules.