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The Identity of Psychiatry and the Challenge of Mad Activism: Rethinking the Clinical Encounter.
- Source :
-
The Journal of medicine and philosophy [J Med Philos] 2020 Nov 30; Vol. 45 (6), pp. 598-622. - Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Central to the identity of modern medical specialities, including psychiatry, is the notion of hypostatic abstraction: doctors treat conditions or disorders, which are conceived of as "things" that people "have." Mad activism rejects this notion and hence challenges psychiatry's identity as a medical specialty. This article elaborates the challenge of Mad activism and develops the hypostatic abstraction as applied to medicine. For psychiatry to maintain its identity as a medical speciality while accommodating the challenge of Mad activism, it must develop an additional conception of the clinical encounter. Toward elaborating this conception, this article raises two basic framing questions: For what kind of understanding of the situation should the clinical encounter aim? What is the therapeutic aim of the encounter as a whole? It proposes that the concepts of "secondary insight" (as the aim of understanding) and of "identity-making" (as a therapeutic aim) can allow the clinical encounter to proceed in a way that accommodates the challenge of Mad activism.<br /> (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc.)
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1744-5019
- Volume :
- 45
- Issue :
- 6
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- The Journal of medicine and philosophy
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 32619218
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhaa009