Stigma, agency and mental health : a discourse analysis of service users talk. Ewen Scott Speed.

Abstract

This thesis is a social constructionist analysis of talk produced in research interviews with people with a psychiatric diagnosis. In total ten interviews were included in an analysis of different ways of talking about the social situations experienced by people with such a psychiatric diagnosis. The main methods employed were semi-structured interviews utilised for the collection of research data and discourse analysis utilised for the analysis of this interview data. The main findings were as follows. Firstly, it was found that there are empirically observable ways of talking about being a person with a psychiatric diagnosis and social reactions towards this possession of a psychiatric diagnosis (both by the incumbents and broader society). Secondly, in a methodological context, it was found that these different ways of talking were used interchangeably by the research participants depending upon the social context they used to describe their social situations. Thirdly, it was found that the impact of these different ways of talking could be empirically demonstrated to impact upon the incumbent person’s agency (or more specifically, that person’s talk about what they are able (and unable) to do. Fourthly, the study identifies (and empirically validates) the impact of these different ways of talking about action on the social stigmatisation of people with a psychiatric diagnosis. Finally, the thesis addresses the roles of different mental health social movement organisations in relation to these social processes of stigma.