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Article ID: CBB001320813

Conversing with the Psychiatrist: Patient Narratives within Glasgow's Royal Asylum, 1921--1929 (2013)

Morrison, Hazel (Author)

Journal of Literature and Science
Volume: 6, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 18-37
Publication date: 2013
Language: English

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Psychiatry Personal narratives Patients Physicians; doctors Doctor-patient relationships Psychiatric hospitals Communication 20th century, early Glasgow (Scotland) Scotland

We therefore see within the case note records of Miss Charlotte Murray, a patient admitted to Gartnavel in 1929 whose narrative opens this article, that whilst the clinical encounter is recorded from the perspective of the psychiatrist, the narrative of the patient, and indeed, her non-verbal forms of communication were accorded a high degree of significance by Henderson. In accordance with the principles of Adolf Meyer, Henderson defined mental illness as the unhealthy reaction of the patient's mind to their physical and social environment (A Text-Book of Psychiatry i), so whilst the organic origins of disease were regarded as being of great etiological importance (as evidenced by the psychiatrist's attempt to auscultate the thorax), Henderson taught that it was equally as vital to let the patient tell their own story so that they were understood as a human being rather than a mere organic entity (Text-Book of Psychiatry viii). From within pivotal moments in a patient's confinement, such as the physical and mental examination, the actions, emotions and volitions of patients such as Miss Murray were therefore bound to the narrative structures and routine techniques of psychiatric case note taking. As the psychiatrist used common cultural discourses, as evidenced by the reference made to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (1872), to give expression to experiences that may otherwise have proven incomprehensible or unspeakable, the illness narrative became the conduit through which Henderson and other practitioners explored how the inner workings of a patient's mind responded to exterior environmental pressures.

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