Wrapping Your Trauma with Clothes: Exploring the Use of Clothing Practice to Enhance Post-traumatic Growth in Female Breast Cancer Survivors

The study aims to explore the lived experience of female breast cancer survivors and their relationship with clothing from a posttraumatic growth perspective. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with six female breast cancer survivors who had undergone a mastectomy and were screened for posttraumatic growth. Interpretation of results (using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis) highlighted the relationship with clothing manifested through four emergent themes: clothing as a means to manage mood, clothing as connection, clothing as a way to conceal/reveal/accentuate and compensate, and clothing as a way to explore the self. In navigating the physical, psychological and social aspects of an altered self, the relationship women formed with clothing was a complex one; overall, clothing emerged as an active coping strategy for participants in this study, and in doing so, could be interpreted as a facilitator for creating an environment for and a means by which to exacerbate posttraumatic growth.