Worlds of Psychotic People: Wanderers, 'Bricoleurs' and Strategists

by Els van Dongen

Overview

Worlds of Psychotic People brings a fresh twenty-first century voice to the lives of those with serious psychological disorders, focusing on the manner in which psychiatric patients experience their subjective worlds. Based on ethnographic research gathered at the psychiatric hospital of Saint Anthony's in the Netherlands over a period of five years, it seeks to describe from the perspective of the mental patient some of the fears and hopes that mark an individual's encounter with the fixed reality-structures of a clinical mental ward.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134410378
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/02/2004
Series:	Theory and Practice in Medical Anthropology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	520 KB

About the Author

Els van Dongen

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements, 1 Introduction, 2 The quest for reality and the work with culture: when psychiatrists and anthropologists explore psychosis, 3 Shaping the context of the speech events: models of therapists and patients 4 Hope and hopelessness, healthy and sick parts, 5 Hiding in talk, 6 Revealing in talk, 7 Living in two worlds, 8 The precarious world of psychotic people, 9 Life and death, 10 Conclusion: psychotic discourse revisited, Notes, References, Index

Editorial Reviews

'A valuable book providing emprirical evidence on pateints' encounter with therapeutic interventions to supplement the growing anthropological research on the experiential and sociocultural aspects of mental illness.' – Social Anthropology

From the Publisher