Education and Wellness: Case Study of an Individual With a Schizoaffective Disorder

• In Event: CANCELLED: Interrelations Between Community, Family, and the Individual: A Triarchic Examination of Learning

Abstract

Theoretical Framework and Purpose. This paper focuses on the individual layer of the Triarchic Framework of Learning. It does so by presenting, in case study format, the educational history of G, a 66 year-old woman with schizoaffective disorder. This individual considers her continuing educational pursuits of significant benefit because they assist in ameliorating her symptoms of chronic depression and in maintaining a sense of wellness. Details of G’s educational history provide potent examples of how this individual has used a range of effective cognitive and non-cognitive strategies in pursuit of her learning goals.
Methods and Data Sources. The data to be presented come from the autoethnography of a mature age student with a schizoaffective disorder. An autoethnography is a methodology situated in a particular cultural setting that has a subject of only one, the researcher. G has a diagnosis of a schizoaffective disorder. She has lived with this condition for over 40 years, since its initial onset as severe depression following the birth of her two children. Symptoms of schizoaffective disorder include the schizophrenic characteristics of hallucinations and delusions, side-by-side with the affective mood swings of bipolar psychosis. A maintenance and protective health regime is usually necessary to manage schizoaffective disorder. In the case of G, this consists of psychotherapy, psychotropic medications and regular electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
Data sources for this autoethnography were twofold. Over the course of one year G kept detailed journals that collected her thoughts about daily life, her educational pursuits, and family circumstances. Additionally, G provided a written commentary on all markers’ comments relating to assignments submitted during her Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) degree. This commentary provided information about G’s academic engagement balanced with regard to her perceptions of her own level of wellness at the time the course work was completed. All data were analysed first of all using open coding procedures, then using Leximancer qualitative data analysis software.
Scholarly Significance and Results. This research is important because it documents the day-to-day challenges of living with a schizoaffective disorder and because it specifically investigates the role of learning in G’s life. This is significant because it provides an opportunity to illuminate Phan’s Triarchic Framework of Learning by way of the specific case study of a lifelong learner.
G’s documentation of her educational history allows an examination of the influences acting upon this individual’s family within the community, and the individual herself, in terms of her learning experiences. G asks the specific research question, “How have my educational goals contributed to my wellness and the considerable academic success I have attained over the years at university?” In her autoethnography, G considers the risk and protective factors in her life as well as the importance to her of ‘academic achievement’, ‘resilience’ and ‘wellness’ plus ‘creativity’ and the ‘pursuit of knowledge’. As G writes, “My story documents my commitment to managing multiple identities and roles, and benefiting from my own journey in pursuit of success, knowledge and finding my voice as a learner.”

Author

• Lorraine J. Graham, University of New England