The representation of illness manifestation during the first psychiatric interview with patients preliminary diagnosed with depressive illness

• Authors: Justyna Ziółkowska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The aim of the study is the analysis of patients' and doctors' discursive representation of mental health problems during the first psychiatric interview. The data comes from 16 initial psychiatric interviews recorded by doctors in three psychiatric hospitals in Poland. Assuming the discursive character of representation the analysis of the data has shown that the representation of illness manifestations in doctors and patients narratives differs. The doctors constructed mental health problems mainly as static and timeless existence of medical symptoms and patients’ traits. Conversely, the patients constructed illness manifestations in terms of action, as dynamic and contextualised processes.Interestingly, the patients deprived themselves of control over the acting illness manifestations. Doctors' static picture of illness manifestations eliminates the possibility of exploring the complicated relationship between patients and their problems. An examination of the way patients construct illness manifestations could be relevant diagnostic information.

Keywords

EN

Discourse analysis; Doctor-Patient relationship; Mental health; Psychiatric interview; Representation of illness

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 123-128

Contributors

author

Justyna Ziółkowska

• Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Wroclaw Faculty, 53-238 Wrocław, ul. Ostrowskiego 30

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10059-011-0017-7