ABSTRACT

Worlds of Psychotic People brings a fresh twenty-first century voice to the lives of those with serious psychological disorders, focusing on the manner in which psychiatric patients experience their subjective worlds. Based on ethnographic research gathered at the psychiatric hospital of Saint Anthony's in the Netherlands over a period of five years, it seeks to describe from the perspective of the mental patient some of the fears and hopes that mark an individual's encounter with the fixed reality-structures of a clinical mental ward.

chapter 1|11 pages

Introduction

chapter 3|18 pages

Shaping the context of speech events

chapter 5|40 pages

Hiding in talk

chapter 6|36 pages

Revealing in talk

chapter 7|24 pages

Living in two worlds

chapter 8|25 pages

The precarious world of psychotic people

chapter 9|21 pages

Life and death

chapter 10|15 pages

Conclusion: psychotic discourse revisited