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All this happened, more or less: thoughts on ‘truth’, the role of fiction and its potential application in mental health and psychiatric nursing research
Author(s) -
BILEY F. C.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.69
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1365-2850
pISSN - 1351-0126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2009.01471.x
Subject(s) - mental health , postmodernism , comparative historical research , fiction theory , variety (cybernetics) , order (exchange) , sociology , history of psychiatry , psychology , epistemology , psychoanalysis , literary fiction , aesthetics , psychiatry , literature , social science , literary criticism , philosophy , computer science , art , finance , artificial intelligence , economics
Accessible summary• This paper explores history and historical research from different perspectives. • It explores the role of fiction in the construction of historical work and how there may be elements of fiction in history, and, similarly, historical ‘fact’ in works of fiction. • A number of texts that explore the 1960's counterculture are interrogated. • A conclusion is drawn that works of fiction can be used, with caution, to inform our understanding of the past.Abstract Fundamental differences in the philosophy of history as an academic discipline are briefly explored, primarily from two perspectives. The traditional psychiatric and mental health nursing historian objectively uses primary sources in order to be able to make ‘truth’ claims about the past. The post‐modern psychiatric nursing historian, on the other hand, constructs truth claims, rather than discovers them, and in the process of doing so creates historical discourses that are different from the past. To the postmodern psychiatric nursing historian, all histories are fictions, created with the use of imagination, and have characteristics that are similar to the literary constructions that are more traditionally identified as fiction. A variety of literature is used in order to explore such claims, and the conclusion is drawn that, with caution and careful attention to the rigorous use of historical method, fiction can be used as a valid source for historical research in psychiatric and mental health nursing.