Addiction Diagnoses as Involvement Controls
There is a long, though now dormant, dispute between sociology and psychiatry. The most famous antagonism came with the antipsychiatry movement, which sought to disqualify mental illness explanations as “false,” as naïve and simplistic objectifications of complex interactional processes. Effectful a...
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| Publicado no: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/reset, |
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| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
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2014
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| Acesso em linha: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:reset_122 |
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openedition |
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OpenEdition Journal |
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Anglais |
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Article ou chapitre numérique |
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0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
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Goffman addiction addiction à Internet pragmatisme diagnostic Goffman addiction Internet addiction pragmatism diagnosis |
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Goffman addiction addiction à Internet pragmatisme diagnostic Goffman addiction Internet addiction pragmatism diagnosis Dellwing, Michael Addiction Diagnoses as Involvement Controls |
| description |
There is a long, though now dormant, dispute between sociology and psychiatry. The most famous antagonism came with the antipsychiatry movement, which sought to disqualify mental illness explanations as “false,” as naïve and simplistic objectifications of complex interactional processes. Effectful as this antagonism was, it effectively pulled up walls between psychiatry and sociology that remain visible today. A contemporary sociological appraisal can transcend this conflict by resuscitating old insights generated by Erving Goffman, who famously stated that did psychiatry not exist, we would have to invent it (1971). To Goffman, as to pragmatists at-large, meanings are social products. That not only applies to the biomedical vocabulary, but also to any vocabulary critics wish to put in its stead, making the constructionist argument toothless for critical purposes (cf. Fish 1989). Rather than debate their truth or falsehood, pragmatists focus on the social contexts and situations in which they arise and on what is achieved by them in these concrete situations.Psychiatric categorizations of people can then be reframed as a tool to mend broken situations where sociation was in severe disarray in ways that protect valuable social realities: placing the causal source of the disarray in people’s bodies provides a clear pinpoint for influence work. It is often a last effort to affect actors whose justifications have retreated into “internalisms” such as “feelings” that became unreachable for other social negotiations of meaning or those who have changed behavior in ways that make them unpredictable or predictable in unwelcome ways. This is not an abstract unpredictability or unwelcome predictability, but one only to those who expect different roles from them.This dynamic is well visible in the case of what the biomedical model now calls “Internet addiction.” The paper will apply Goffman’s work on mental illness as a disturbance of the order of “place” to this contemporary expansion of the diagnostic canon. Place is here negotiated via time: “Internet addiction” is ascribed to those whose priorities concerning their time management worry, sadden and anger others. These others define their relationship and other activities functional to that relationship (i.e. concern with professional and social duties) as “high priority” and seek to enforce this priority over other uses of time that they mark as “useless,” as “a misdistribution of time.” The illness vocabulary is thus a practical tool to socially control and enforce “correct” time-management when other tools fail. |
| author |
Dellwing, Michael |
| author_facet |
Dellwing, Michael |
| author_sort |
Dellwing, Michael |
| title |
Addiction Diagnoses as Involvement Controls |
| title_short |
Addiction Diagnoses as Involvement Controls |
| title_full |
Addiction Diagnoses as Involvement Controls |
| title_fullStr |
Addiction Diagnoses as Involvement Controls |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Addiction Diagnoses as Involvement Controls |
| title_sort |
addiction diagnoses as involvement controls |
| publisher |
RESET |
| publishDate |
2014 |
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URI:https://journals.openedition.org/reset |
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https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/reset.122 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/reset/122 |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:reset_122 https://doi.org/10.4000/reset.122 urn:doi:10.4000/reset.122 en https://journals.openedition.org/reset/122 2014-07-22T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/jvr3 All rights reserved Addiction Diagnoses as Involvement Controls RESET Association Recherches en sciences sociales sur Internet info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2264-6221 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/reset Dellwing, Michael Goffman addiction addiction à Internet pragmatisme diagnostic Goffman addiction Internet addiction pragmatism diagnosis There is a long, though now dormant, dispute between sociology and psychiatry. The most famous antagonism came with the antipsychiatry movement, which sought to disqualify mental illness explanations as “false,” as naïve and simplistic objectifications of complex interactional processes. Effectful as this antagonism was, it effectively pulled up walls between psychiatry and sociology that remain visible today. A contemporary sociological appraisal can transcend this conflict by resuscitating old insights generated by Erving Goffman, who famously stated that did psychiatry not exist, we would have to invent it (1971). To Goffman, as to pragmatists at-large, meanings are social products. That not only applies to the biomedical vocabulary, but also to any vocabulary critics wish to put in its stead, making the constructionist argument toothless for critical purposes (cf. Fish 1989). Rather than debate their truth or falsehood, pragmatists focus on the social contexts and situations in which they arise and on what is achieved by them in these concrete situations.Psychiatric categorizations of people can then be reframed as a tool to mend broken situations where sociation was in severe disarray in ways that protect valuable social realities: placing the causal source of the disarray in people’s bodies provides a clear pinpoint for influence work. It is often a last effort to affect actors whose justifications have retreated into “internalisms” such as “feelings” that became unreachable for other social negotiations of meaning or those who have changed behavior in ways that make them unpredictable or predictable in unwelcome ways. This is not an abstract unpredictability or unwelcome predictability, but one only to those who expect different roles from them.This dynamic is well visible in the case of what the biomedical model now calls “Internet addiction.” The paper will apply Goffman’s work on mental illness as a disturbance of the order of “place” to this contemporary expansion of the diagnostic canon. Place is here negotiated via time: “Internet addiction” is ascribed to those whose priorities concerning their time management worry, sadden and anger others. These others define their relationship and other activities functional to that relationship (i.e. concern with professional and social duties) as “high priority” and seek to enforce this priority over other uses of time that they mark as “useless,” as “a misdistribution of time.” The illness vocabulary is thus a practical tool to socially control and enforce “correct” time-management when other tools fail. Il existe une longue histoire de conflits, bien qu’aujourd’hui moins ouverts, entre la sociologie et la psychiatrie. L’antagonisme le plus connu est venu du mouvement antipsychiatrique, qui a essayé de disqualifier les conceptions psychiatriques de la maladie mentale en tant qu’objectifications naïves et simplistes de processus interactionnels en réalité complexes. Quels que soient les effets de cet antagonisme, celui-ci a effectivement érigé des cloisons entre sociologie et psychiatrie qui demeurent visibles aujourd’hui. Ce conflit peut être dépassé en recourant à d’anciennes perspectives, comme celles d’Erving Goffman qui avait notoirement dit que si la psychiatrie n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer (1971). Pour Goffman, ainsi que pour les pragmatistes en général, le sens est un produit social. Ceci ne s’applique pas seulement au vocabulaire biomédical, mais aussi à tout vocabulaire que ses détracteurs souhaitent lui opposer, ce qui diminue la portée critique de l’argument constructiviste (cf. Fish 1989). Plutôt que de débattre de leur véracité, les pragmatistes se concentrent sur les contextes et situations sociales dans lesquels les mots émergent, et sur ce que ces derniers produisent concrètement. Ainsi, les catégorisations psychiatriques peuvent être repensées comme des outils servant à corriger des situations de rupture de sociabilité en situant la cause du bouleversement dans le corps des individus de manière à préserver des réalités sociales valorisées. C’est une manière d’atteindre des acteurs qui, retranchés derrière des justifications d’ordre interne comme les « émotions », évitent d’autres négociations du sens, ou qui ont changé leurs comportements socialement indésirables ou imprévisibles. Cette dynamique est bien visible dans le cas de ce que la perspective biomédicale nomme « l’addiction à Internet ». Cet article puise dans le travail de Goffman sur la maladie mentale en tant que perturbation de l’ordre « dans la place » pour l’appliquer à cette extension contemporaine du canon diagnostique. L’espace est ici négocié via le temps : « l’addiction à Internet » est attribuée à ceux dont les priorités de gestion du temps inquiètent, attristent ou fâchent autrui. Ces autruis accordent à leur relation et aux activités qui leur sont complémentaires (par exemple des responsabilités professionnelles et sociales) une haute priorité et cherchent à imposer cette priorité au détriment d’autres usages du temps considérés comme inutiles ou mal agencés. Le vocabulaire pathologique constitue ainsi un outil pratique pour le contrôle social et l’imposition d’une gestion « correcte » du temps là où d’autres outils ont échoué. |