Embodied disruption and the process of sexual adjustment after breast cancer: a qualitative study

Aim Sexual difficulties are commonly reported following breast cancer treatment; however, much of the existing literature has focused on sexual outcomes rather than the embodied processes through which these difficulties emerge and evolve. This study aimed to advance understanding of post-treatment sexual adjustment by examining how bodily changes become sexually and psychologically consequential across survivorship.Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with women following completion of primary breast cancer treatment. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis supported by matrix coding and hierarchical cluster analysis to explore interrelations among cognitive, emotional, embodied, and sexual experiences.Results Findings were organised across five interconnected themes: (1) pre-cancer sexual identity, (2) diagnosis as a cognitive–existential rupture, (3) embodied disruption after treatment, (4) sexual self-concept trajectories (collapse, suspension, reconstruction), and (5) emotional regulation and meaning-making. These themes describe sexual adjustment as a dynamic, non-linear process initiated by embodied disruption.Conclusions Emotional regulation and meaning-making enabled women to live alongside enduring embodied and emotional tension. These findings reconceptualise sexual adjustment as an ongoing, embodied, and identity-based process, highlighting the need for survivorship care.