The Burke Narrative Studies and Chronic Illness Lab is coordinated by Dr. Philip Burke, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Southern Illinois University, in Carbondale, Illinois. The lab is dedicated to understanding and promoting resilience to traumatic experiences and chronic illness, particularly progressive illness. Our work blends a variety of methods of study to understand resilience and coping through the eyes of those living with illness. We study how people organize and structure their stories of their illness and lives, then examine how this relates to thought, emotion, and coping.
Our work now is rooted in the examination of written and verbal narrative accounts of significant memories such as peak experiences, trauma, life turning points, and other meaningful memories in the hopes that this will provide a foundation for our future work with chronic illness. We have also conducted a number of surveys to examine other psychological factors that contribute to successful and unsuccessful adaptation to serious illness.
At the present, Dr. Burke is on extended medical leave from the university so we are not gathering new data at this time. The lab will re-open once Dr. Burke returns to the university.