Medicine, money and madness : conversations with psychiatrists - a postmodern perspective

Abstract

Foucault speaks of the formation of an individual's identity, or the process of becoming someone else, as a worthy game. For postmodernists, it is considered a life-long process of reconstruction and re-evaluation. The identities that are the focus of this research are psychiatrists, but also the self. This research follows previous post-graduate research that reflected on knowledge, power, space, surveillance, the body and organisational control. The major questions of this earlier research was; "What constituted normality in the work place and who were the arbiters of this normality" Chapter one of this work - Psychiatrists in Post-modernity, introduces the research project through the research questions, motivation for the project and the challenges to be met. Chapter two is a theoretical chapter that presents Post-modern Philosophical Perspective and discusses the history of development of post-modern thought in social research. Chapter three - History, Myth and Reality, places today's psychiatry in Australia, in historical context. Chapter four - People, Politics and Purpose, considers the current state of mental health policy in Australia. Chapter five - Methodology and Methods, considers the methodological debate in the social sciences between qualitative and quantitative research methods. Chapter six - Outcomes and Interpretation presents an interpretation of the research interviews and discusses the connections and possible meanings of the stories told by psychiatrists, within the context of the post-modern philosophical perspective. Chapter seven - Post-modern Psychiatry considers the question: is there or can there be a post-modern psychiatry? It takes the interpretations, connections and meanings from Chapter six and locates them in the wider social context of the Australian National Mental Health Strategy

Date of Award	2004
Original language	English