Synopses & Reviews
This book is written not only (or even primarily) for sociologists, psychologists, or other social service professionals, but also for curious and literate students and lay people. I have tried to make it accessible to the ordinary person. Most of all, it is written for those having direct experience of the psychiatric enterprise. The book as a whole is intended to show how psychiatric work creates patterns of interaction between the staff and residents that routinely poses the question, Who's crazy? on both the individual and societal levels. In chapter one, the author argues that social-constructionist methods ought to be wed to critical theory in studying social problems. Chapter two details the nature of psychiatric intervention into residents' lives in terms of how these practices infl uence their social status and personal identities. In chapter three, staff families and social backgrounds, cultural orientations, and the relationships between these dimensions and avenues into psychiatric work are described and analyzed. Chapter four is concerned with comparative analysis of unusual experiences as defi ned and described by residents and staff. In chapter fi ve, direct skirmishes between staff and residents over the nature and location of the border between sanity and insanity are described and analyzed. The concluding chapter reviews major points from the descriptions and analyses comparing residents and staff in the preceding four chapters.
Synopsis
Mirrors of Madness depicts the social-psychological processes and institutional consequences of psychiatric staffs experience of "closet insanity" (private worries about theirown social and psychological competence) and "reverse role modeling" (identification with their labeled psychotic clients' public behavior).
The book shows how, in attempting to ward off the threat involved in these processes, staffs tend to be more vigilant of their own behavior while redirecting their insecurities toward their clients in the form of derogatory humor in psychiatric evaluations. These and other activities are shown to be inhibiting factors in the rehabilitative function of social control agencies.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-126) and index.