Self, identity and radical surgery

Abstract Data are reported from interviews, analysed qualitatively, with persons who had had ulcerative colitis cured by radical surgery. The procedures performed on the subjects were total colectomy and ileostomy. The subjects were left permanently faecally incontinent by these procedures. Using concepts derived from the work of Mead, and developed in interactionist sociology, the consequences for self and identity of these operations are considered. The tension between the private self of the person with an ileostomy and their public social identity as an ileostomist is examined.