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Case Reports
. 1988 Sep;12(3):265-99.
doi: 10.1007/BF00051971.

Clinical writing and the documentary construction of schizophrenia

R J Barrett  1
Affiliations
Case Reports

Clinical writing and the documentary construction of schizophrenia

R J Barrett. Cult Med Psychiatry. 1988 Sep.

Abstract

Psychiatric practice involves writing as much as it involves talking. This study examines the interpretive processes of reading, writing and interviewing which are central to the clinical interaction. It is part of a broader ethnographic study of an Australian psychiatric hospital (which specializes in the treatment of patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia). The paper examines two major types of written assessment of patients--the admission assessment and the 'complete work-up.' Writing is analyzed as performance, thereby focusing on the transformations that are effected in patients, their perceptions of their schizophrenia, and their total identity. One crucial transformation is from 'person suffering from schizophrenia' to 'schizophrenic.' The paper aims to show that as much as psychiatry is a 'talking cure' it is also a 'writing cure.'

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