Body, Affect, and Meaning Making in the Diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: A Semiodynamic Microgenetic Analysis

Qualitative health research has examined how people make meaning in the context of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) diagnoses, often focusing on how patients describe and reflect upon their current health situation. However, meaning is frequently treated as something enclosed within signs, with limited attention to how it emerges dynamically through lived, bodily processes. Addressing these two gaps, this article explores how affect and bodily experience guide the process of meaning - making in T1DM, a chronic and incurable illness. Grounded in a semiodynamic approach inspired by Peircean semiotics, we conducted a microgenetic analysis of in-depth interviews from a single-case study. Our analysis focused on four experiential moments: the transition to illness, the reception of the diagnosis, the pursuit of a cure, and the embodied experience of a hypoglycemic episode. Although the diagnosis initiated a shift in the patient’s experience, it was through the embodied and affect-laden episode of hypoglycemia that more enduring reorganizations in meaning took place, shaping decisions around self-care and engagement with treatment. These insights may support health professionals in attending more sensitively to the meanings that guide patients’ thinking, actions, and illness management. Additional cases are needed to support theory-building around the embodied dynamics of meaning-making in T1DM.