Voices from the Newspaper Club: Patient Life at a State Psychiatric Hospital (1988-1992)

dc.contributor.authorBeckman, Emily
dc.contributor.authorNelson, Elizabeth
dc.contributor.authorLabode, Modupe
dc.contributor.departmentMedical Humanities and Health Studies, School of Liberal Artsen_US
dc.date.accessioned2021-10-22T19:05:51Z
dc.date.available2021-10-22T19:05:51Z
dc.date.issued2020-05-21
dc.description.abstractThe authors conducted a qualitative analysis of thirty-seven issues of The DDU Review, a newsletter produced by residents of the Dual Diagnosis Unit, a residential unit for people who had diagnoses of developmental disability and serious mental illness in the Central State Hospital (Indiana, USA). The analysis of the newsletters produced between September 1988 and June 1992 revealed three major themes: 1) the mundane; 2) good behavior; and 3) advocacy. Contrary to the authors’ expectations, the discourse of medicalization—such as relations with physicians, diagnoses, and medications—receive little attention. Instead, the patient-journalists focus on prosaic aspects of institutional life. The patients used their writing as a form self-definition and advocacy. The authors argue that even though it is tempting to consider the patients’ emphasis on good behavior as evidence of institutional control, internalized discipline, and medicalization, a more nuanced interpretation, which focuses on how the patients’ understood their own experiences, is warranted. Researchers must also recognize the ways in which The DDU Review reveals the patient-journalists’ experience of an institutional life that includes non-medical staff (attendants, secretaries, and therapists), varied social relationships among patients, and negotiated freedoms.en_US
dc.eprint.versionFinal published versionen_US
dc.identifier.citationBeckman, E., Nelson, E., & Labode, M. (2020). Voices from the Newspaper Club: Patient Life at a State Psychiatric Hospital (1988-1992). Journal of Medical Humanities. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-020-09617-7en_US
dc.identifier.issn1573-3645en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1805/26847
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherSpringeren_US
dc.relation.isversionof10.1007/s10912-020-09617-7en_US
dc.relation.journalJournal of Medical Humanitiesen_US
dc.rightsCC0 1.0 Universal
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/*
dc.sourcePublisheren_US
dc.subjectCentral State Hospitalen_US
dc.subjectDual Diagnosis Uniten_US
dc.subjectmental health patientsen_US
dc.titleVoices from the Newspaper Club: Patient Life at a State Psychiatric Hospital (1988-1992)en_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
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