Managing the Medicalization of Madness: A Narrative Analysis of Personal Stories about Mental Illness Online

Emancipatory in spirit this thesis asserts personal narratives are an essential and active contributor to the development of meanings in discourse about mental illness and they have an influential role managing medicalization. The medicalization of madness is increasingly contested as people describe and explain how medical approaches and definitions of mental illness at best fail to adequately account for personal experiences of distress, and at worst are the cause of increased physical and psychological trauma. This thesis examines personal narratives posted publicly on medical, social care, and activist websites by organizations and individuals offering support and information about mental illness, community care options, psychiatric survivorship, activism and advocacy. Initial reviews indicated personal stories are included on websites by organizations and individuals with differing views, either for or against medical approaches, suggesting narratives are valued as a way to support or challenge various perspectives on medical approaches to mental illness. In this thesis the objective is not to determine which view is correct or truthful, rather it is to examine how people manage discourse about mental illness as it relates to their personal experiences, whether they identify as health care consumers, patients, ex-patients, or psychiatric survivors. Drawing on Habermas’s (1987) Theory of Communicative Action and Fairclough’s (1992) Social Theory of Discourse this thesis conceptualizes personal narratives as discursive practices and active sites where meaning is negotiated as people work to express lifeworld experiences in ways that fit with, yet challenge system discourses about mental illness. Using Gubrium and Holstein’s (2009) methodology of Narrative Ethnography the analysis identifies and examines personal stories about what it’s like being a patient, how social relationships matter, and why recovery is personal. The analysis shows people manage medicalization of their experiences in their stories by making meaningful connections between personal experiences and discourse about mental illness via a narrative practice (introduced here) called narrative bridging. To accomplish this people use narrative strategies of resisting, re-informing, and reinforcing discourse about mental illness, and it is through these strategies and the consequences of narrative bridging that medicalization is managed in personal narratives.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communications Studies

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Graduate Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Solomon, Monique de Boer

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Schneider, Barbara

• Mass Communications

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/26823

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:11023/2251