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THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITIES: A PROBLEM OR A SOLUTION FOR PSYCHIATRY? A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW
Author(s) -
Manning Nick
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
british journal of psychotherapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.442
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1752-0118
pISSN - 0265-9883
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-0118.2010.01203.x
Subject(s) - scrutiny , field (mathematics) , mental health , meaning (existential) , therapeutic community , epistemology , politics , psychology , sociological theory , sociology , causality (physics) , centrality , psychotherapist , social science , law , combinatorics , philosophy , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , political science , pure mathematics
This paper reviews the place of the therapeutic community in the mental health field, using a sociological framework to understand some key factors that have shaped the field and its response to this approach to therapy. The therapeutic community treatment method in mental health has been contested over the years. It has challenged conventional professional frameworks, it has dealt with a difficult client group, and it has been hostile to or at least awkward about establishing its evidence base. In this paper I reflect on the ‘politics of evidence’ in contested fields. I draw on the analysis of ‘fields’ from the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the analysis of scientific knowledge from an area of the social study of science, ‘actor‐network theory’. I argue that evidence is not neutral in contested fields, and that the technology of trials is not balanced with a theoretically informed understanding of the phenomena under scrutiny (causality versus meaning).