To have or to take: discourse, positioning, and narrative identity in women's accounts of HRT

Using 'social cognitive' frameworks, attitudes to HRT have been examined as if they were stable entities located within individuals. However, qualitative studies have revealed variations and contradictions in women's 'attitudes'. We seek to explain these apparent contradictions by using a social constructionist approach to the analysis of qualitative data from 7 focus group discussions about HRT with 48 women in New Zealand. A discourse analysis of 'interpretative repertoires', subject positions and narrative identity was undertaken to explain the construction of HRT in situated practice, and the negotiation and accomplishment of a unitary orientation to HRT across situations. The results summarize the interpretative repertoires used by the women, and one example of a subject position negotiated at a moment of patently problematic intersecting interpretative repertoires, to highlight the construction of subject positions using discursive resources. The importance of the study of subjectivity in applied areas of psychology is discussed.