Towards an ecosystemic understanding of Endometriosis

Abstract

Endometriosis or the "career woman's disease" is a puzzling disease affecting women in their reproductive years. Research on endometriosis has focussed on aspects such as the personality characteristics of sufferers and its correlation with infertility (Venter, 1980). As yet, the experiential world of endometriosis sufferers and the relationships which are influenced by their disease have received little attention (Weinstein, 1987). Furthermore, endometriosis is construed as a physical disorder which is medically diagnosed and medically treated. As such, the epistemology surrounding the term "endometriosis" is an adherent to a largely non-contextual, non-systemic and intrinsically mechanistic biomedical model (Bogdan, 1984; Schwartz, 1982). By using an ecosystemic epistemology, this dissertation will attempt to describe the unique experiential world of the afflicted woman in terms of her coping strategies in dealing with endometriosis and to formulate a description of the interactional patterns between herself and significant others directly influenced by her disease.