Time and the psychiatric interview: The negotiation of temporal criteria of the depressive disorder. (March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ziółkowska, Justyna
• Is Part Of: Health. Volume 18:Number 2(2014:Mar.)
• Page Start: 163
• Page End: 178
• Publication Date: 2014-03
• Subjects: discourse analysis -- experiencing illness and narratives -- mental health -- patient–physician relationship; Health -- Periodicals; Health -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 613.05
• DOI: 10.1177/1363459313488005
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1363-4593

Abstract

In this article, I am concerned with doctors' negotiations of the temporal dimension of the diagnostic criteria of depressive disorders during the first psychiatric interview. The data come from 16 initial psychiatric interviews recorded by doctors in three psychiatric hospitals in Poland. Taking a constructionist view of discourse and psychiatric practices, I shall argue that the discursive practice related to temporal information about patients' illnesses serves in gaining information, which is useful in the medical model of psychiatric diagnosis. The doctors positioned the patients' experiences on the timeline when the illness history was taken and temporal information authenticated the information. Conversely, the patients' current conditions were constructed in a limitless present, which allowed the psychiatrists to remove the relativity.