| Abstract [eng] |
Living with type 1 diabetes rarely enters the scientific gaze as it is experienced from within — not as a set of indicators, but as a daily, embodied, never-switching-off experience. This study explores the body experience of young women with type 1 diabetes in the process of art therapy. No research examining this experience from a phenomenological perspective through visual expression has been conducted in Lithuania. The aim of the study was to reveal how young women living with type 1 diabetes experience and make sense of their body in the process of art therapy. Objectives: 1) to identify how young women understand and give meaning to their embodied experience of living with type 1 diabetes during art therapy; 2) to describe and structure the multilayered nature and potential dynamics of this experience. Methods. A qualitative, inductive study was conducted, grounded in a phenomenological approach. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was applied following Smith, Flowers, and Larkin (2022), with multimodal hermeneutic-phenomenological analysis for visual data (Boden & Eatough, 2014). Data were collected during ten group art therapy sessions. Visual artworks, written reflections, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and the researcher's journal were analysed. Four young women (aged 19–33) living with type 1 diabetes participated in the study. Results. The analysis revealed five group experiential themes: “The constantly beeping and disobedient body,“ “Everything is always fine with me,“ “My body tried to eliminate me,“ “You won't understand what's inside until you see it on the canvas,“ and “Among your own, no explanations needed.“ A trajectory emerged across the therapeutic process — from constant vigilance and emotional suppression toward rare moments in which the body could be experienced not as a threat, but as a creator of meaning. Visual expression and verbal reflection functioned as complementary forms that allowed participants to access layers of experience that words alone could not reach. Conclusions. The body experiences of the participants appeared as multilayered — encompassing sensory, emotional, social, and existential dimensions. Art therapy in this context functioned not as an intervention, but as a space for articulating experience, in which the body could be not only monitored, but also heard. The multimodal IPA approach demonstrated that visual data can meaningfully complement verbal data by revealing not a momentary state, but the movement of experience itself. |
