This article examines engagement in a therapeutic education program offered to patients on oral anticancer therapy. Based on an ethnographic survey and biographical interviews, the study focuses on the variability of the modalities of engagement by studying the social processes that influence and differentiate them. Starting from an analysis of the effects of socialization (past and present) on relationships to others (patients, caregivers, family and friends), to knowledge, and to illness, the work highlights several profiles of patients who have built up dispositions that are more or less suited to the therapeutic education program and who do not engage in the same way during the different sessions. As a matter of fact, the ways of engaging in the program fluctuate as a result of in-session interactions and previous socializations that act as resources or obstacles when it comes to talking about oneself and one’s disease in public, valuing experiential knowledge, or developing more or less asymmetrical relationships with healthcare staff and other patients.
- engagement
- therapeutic patient education
- socialization
- cancer