ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces language as a medium for expressing experience, the relationship between professional and service user in relation to mental health, and a critical theory of health care. It examines the contention that the shaping function of language can limit or expand the articulation and agency of both service users and health care workers. The chapter looks at the role language plays in circumscribing lived experience and how this relates to understanding of oneself as a professional working in health and social care, as well as everyone's experiences of receiving care. Drawing broadly on the insights of critical theory as applied to health care, the poetic hybrid writing of Bhanu Kapil and Simone Weil's philosophical writing, this chapter takes a critical lens to health and social care through examining practices relating to mental health care.
