Abstract
Drawing from ethnographic research among clinicians working with adolescents at a hospital psychiatric emergency department and outpatient clinic, and with interviews with adolescent psychiatric patients and their parents, we examine how psychiatric medicines function as socializing agents. Although psychiatric medications are thought to exert their main effects through direct biological action on neural circuitry, in fact, their use mobilizes specific kinds of moral discourse and social positioning that may have profound effects on sense of self, personhood, and psychological development. Specifically, our data reveal how clinical discourse around medications aims to enlist adolescents in becoming responsible, emotionally intelligent selves through learning to manage their medications. Among doctors, adolescents and their families, talk about psychiatric medications intertwines narratives of 'growing up' and 'getting well'. Our analysis of case studies from the clinic thus demonstrates that while psychiatric medications are explicitly designed to influence behavior by acting directly on the brain, they also act to structure adolescents' selves and social worlds through indirect, rather than direct causal pathways to the brain.
References
May 8, 2000·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·A Lakoff
Jan 2, 2004·The British Journal of Psychiatry : the Journal of Mental Science·Sami Timimi, Eric Taylor
Jun 24, 2004·Social Science & Medicine·Ilina Singh
Jan 26, 2005·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Tomás Paus
Jun 14, 2005·Biological Psychiatry·Ronald C KesslerAlan M Zaslavsky
Aug 2, 2005·Trends in Neurosciences·Michael J Meaney, Moshe Szyf
Nov 3, 2005·JAMA : the Journal of the American Medical Association·Thomas R Insel, Remi Quirion
May 5, 2006·Transcultural Psychiatry·Laurence J Kirmayer
Jun 20, 2007·Transcultural Psychiatry·Laurence J Kirmayer
Nov 17, 2007·Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience·Deena Skolnick WeisbergJeremy R Gray
Jan 13, 2009·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Daniel A Hackman, Martha J Farah
Mar 19, 2009·Transcultural Psychiatry·Laurence J Kirmayer, Eugene Raikhel
Mar 19, 2009·Transcultural Psychiatry·Michael J Oldani
Mar 19, 2009·Transcultural Psychiatry·Jerry FloerschRobert L Findling
Aug 12, 2009·Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy·UNKNOWN National Institute of Neurological Disorders, National Institutes of Health
Aug 25, 2009·The Journal of Adolescent Health : Official Publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine·Sara B JohnsonJay N Giedd
Dec 23, 2009·Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic·Carla SharpPeter Fonagy
Feb 12, 2010·World Psychiatry : Official Journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA)·Anthony Bateman, Peter Fonagy
Aug 20, 2010·Anthropology & Medicine·Kelly A McKinney, Brian G Greenfield
Jan 20, 2012·Social Science & Medicine·Suparna ChoudhuryMoritz Merten
Feb 5, 2013·Consciousness and Cognition·Leonora G WeilSarah-Jayne Blakemore
Jun 5, 2013·Biological Psychiatry·Anna SmithKatya Rubia
Jun 22, 2013·Transcultural Psychiatry·Jack Levinson, Kelly A McKinney
Jun 7, 2014·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience·Maurizio Meloni
Jul 30, 2014·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience·Laurence J Kirmayer, Daina Crafa