Greetings:
There appeared among the recent posts a series of questions about
"schizophrenics."
I wonder if, as psychologists who work from constructivist principles, we
might do better by coming up with a more useful way of designating the
troublesome people whom those who work from biological/disease principles have
labled schizophrenic.
Of course, we could continue to use the term schizophrenic if we can manage
to work out a constructivist construction by which to construe those
troublesome people, and then we would reference that construction with the term
schizophrenic.
I am not sure that that ploy would work very well, since a continued use of
the term would serve to prompt the "unschooled" to build the standard
biological/disease construction in order to construe the events to which we are
referring.
I think that we might better come up with another term, such as troublesome
deviant construers, or some such.
Perhaps a change in terms would also serve to prompt constructivists to
insist that their constructions of those troublesome construers has as much
utility as does the biological/disease narrative.
Certainly, the medical/disease narrative hasn't been very useful! When we
(Mancuso and Sarbin) published our book, Schizophrenia: Medical diagnosis or
moral verdict, in 1980, we were forced to conclude that the medical/disease
narrative simply does not make a "good story."
My continued review of the available literature also forces me to believe
that the story has not improved in the last 18 years!!!
Shall we vote on a new term? Shall we vote on the utility of a
constructivist construction of troublesome deviant construers? After all, the
validity of the "diagnosis" is determined by consensus and a vote.... Can't we
take a vote of our network colleagues?
Jim Mancuso
--
James C. Mancuso Dept. of Psychology
15 Oakwood Place University at Albany
Delmar, NY 12054 1400 Washington Ave.
Tel: (518)439-4416 Albany, NY 12222
Mailto:mancusoj@capital.net
http://www.capital.net/~mancusoj
A website dedicated to a personal view of Per-
sonal Construct Psychology
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Greetings:
There appeared among the recent posts a series of
questions about "schizophrenics."
I wonder if, as psychologists who work from constructivist
principles, we might do better by coming up with a more useful way of designating
the troublesome people whom those who work from biological/disease principles
have labled schizophrenic.
Of course, we could continue to use the term schizophrenic
if we can manage to work out a constructivist construction by which to
construe those troublesome people, and then we would reference that construction
with the term schizophrenic.
I am not sure that that ploy would work very well,
since a continued use of the term would serve to prompt the "unschooled"
to build the standard biological/disease construction in order to construe
the events to which we are referring.
I think that we might better come up with another
term, such as troublesome deviant construers, or some such.
Perhaps a change in terms would also serve to prompt
constructivists to insist that their constructions of those troublesome
construers has as much utility as does the biological/disease narrative.
Certainly, the medical/disease narrative hasn't been
very useful! When we (Mancuso and Sarbin) published our book,
Schizophrenia: Medical diagnosis or moral verdict, in 1980, we were
forced to conclude that the medical/disease narrative simply does not make
a "good story."
My continued review of the available literature
also forces me to believe that the story has not improved in the last 18
years!!!
Shall we vote on a new term? Shall we vote
on the utility of a constructivist construction of troublesome deviant
construers? After all, the validity of the "diagnosis" is determined
by consensus and a vote.... Can't we take a vote of our network colleagues?
Jim Mancuso
--
James C. Mancuso Dept. of
Psychology
15 Oakwood Place University
at Albany
Delmar, NY 12054 1400 Washington
Ave.
Tel: (518)439-4416 Albany, NY 12222
Mailto:mancusoj@capital.net
http://www.capital.net/~mancusoj
A website dedicated to a personal view of Per-
sonal Construct Psychology
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