Reconciling discursive and materialist perspectives on health and illness: a reconstruction of the biopsychosocial approach
Reconciling discursive and materialist perspectives on health and illness: a reconstruction of the biopsychosocial approach
This paper examines the feasibility of developing ‘material-discursive’ approaches suitable for studying the reciprocal interactions between the sociolinguistic and physical aspects of health and illness. The term ‘discursive’ is used in the broadest possible sense, to refer to a mode of description characterized by awareness of the socially constructed and linguistically mediated nature of human experience. Similarly, the term ‘material’ is extended to embrace any non-reductionist account of physical being which appears compatible with a discursive outlook. The obstacles to a material-discursive approach are discussed, with particular reference to the debate between researchers who conduct traditional quantitative and experimental research within the ‘biopsychosocial’ framework and those who advocate a radical anti-realist position and qualitative research. A variety of material-discursive perspectives are explored, ranging from consideration of the physical origins and manifestations of linguistic meaning and socio-cultural processes, to analysis of the consonance between social constructionism, phenomenology and James Gibson’s ecological psychology.
485-508
Yardley, Lucy
64be42c4-511d-484d-abaa-f8813452a22e
1 August 1996
Yardley, Lucy
64be42c4-511d-484d-abaa-f8813452a22e
Yardley, Lucy
(1996)
Reconciling discursive and materialist perspectives on health and illness: a reconstruction of the biopsychosocial approach.
Theory & Psychology, 6 (3), .
(doi:10.1177/0959354396063008).
Abstract
This paper examines the feasibility of developing ‘material-discursive’ approaches suitable for studying the reciprocal interactions between the sociolinguistic and physical aspects of health and illness. The term ‘discursive’ is used in the broadest possible sense, to refer to a mode of description characterized by awareness of the socially constructed and linguistically mediated nature of human experience. Similarly, the term ‘material’ is extended to embrace any non-reductionist account of physical being which appears compatible with a discursive outlook. The obstacles to a material-discursive approach are discussed, with particular reference to the debate between researchers who conduct traditional quantitative and experimental research within the ‘biopsychosocial’ framework and those who advocate a radical anti-realist position and qualitative research. A variety of material-discursive perspectives are explored, ranging from consideration of the physical origins and manifestations of linguistic meaning and socio-cultural processes, to analysis of the consonance between social constructionism, phenomenology and James Gibson’s ecological psychology.
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Published date: 1 August 1996
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Local EPrints ID: 509324
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/509324
ISSN: 0959-3543
PURE UUID: 0e4d1cf3-2318-4b34-b00d-a2fac43b75d7
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Date deposited: 18 Feb 2026 17:43
Last modified: 21 Feb 2026 02:38
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