This project allows a student to conduct dissertation research in Italy on an alternative psychiatric treatment program. The student will study the program called "Democratic Psychiatry", a system whereby patients are deinstitutionalized and the treatment focuses on reorienting the patients' understanding of society and their illness. The hypotheses to be tested focus upon the degree of similarity between the patient's model of his or her illness and the prevailing institutional model of the illness: the more congruent the understanding of patients and practitioners about the problem, the more likely the patient will be improved. Methods to be used include intensive interviewing of personnel and participant observation in a Mental Health clinic, and interviews with a stratified random sample of 25 patients including life histories, and discourse analysis. A standard psychometric instrument will be used to evaluate treatment outcomes. This project is important because it studies the process whereby patients and practitioners negotiate, redefine, and reinterpret the reality of the illness and its betterment (as opposed to the view that the illness is caused by external factors and cured by technicians acting upon a passive patient). As such it contributes to current theories of the culturally determined, interactional nature of illness, in specific, and of human behavior in general.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS)
Type
Standard Grant (Standard)
Application #
8901663
Program Officer
name not available
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
1989-03-01
Budget End
1991-08-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
1989
Total Cost
$10,000
Indirect Cost
Name
Stanford University
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Palo Alto
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94304