ABSTRACT
This chapter provides readers with a symbolic interactionist perspective on the meaning of “the self’ in order to gain deeper insights into the complex actions oncology medical professional’s take while coping, caring, and communicating with dying patients. The process of reflection is an important tenant in symbolic interactionism. The significant aspect of reflexive processing is that it is an integral act of the self, which is a major area of interest for symbolic interactionists. For participants to understand each others self-acts they must first reflexively look back on themselves as a symbolic object in interactions; and second, self-determine, and decide how to use suitable self-acts as a purposeful line of action to fit particular events. With the mechanism of self-interaction the human being ceases to be a responding organism whose behavior is a product of what plays upon him from the outside, the inside or both.
