Unpacking Dependency; Managing ‘Becoming’

This chapter uses findings from a study of the experiences of people living with a diagnosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease to illustrate a discussion about the management of patients learning to live with a chronic condition. It focuses on a broader discussion of dependency in order to offer suggestions for how the process of 'becoming' someone that lives with such a condition should be supported. The chapter begins with an unpacking of key features of dependency, using Eva Feder Kittay's terminology of 'inevitable' and 'derivative' dependency as a starting point. It offers some considerations of the relationship between the wicked features of managing dependency and the efforts of those with a responsibility to organize and manage care services. The notion of dependency is often used as a shorthand justification of a normative judgment whereby a situation, policy or action is wrong when it places the subject in a position of being dependent.