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Assembling Adjustment: Parergasia, Paper Technologies, and the Revision of Recovery.
- Source :
-
Culture, medicine and psychiatry [Cult Med Psychiatry] 2021 Sep; Vol. 45 (3), pp. 405-428. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Aug 02. - Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- Drawing from research on 'paper technologies' conducted by medical historians Volker Hess and Andrew Mendelsohn, among others, this article explores how Adolf Meyer (1866-1950) and his staff at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic used customized punch cards to develop an alternative conceptualization of schizophrenia: 'parergasia.' It begins by examining 'dementia praecox,' the conceptual precursor to both schizophrenia and parergasia, to explain how earlier paper technologies used to track patients transferred to asylums generated prognostic assumptions that precluded deinstitutionalization and community-based care. It then describes how Meyer's staff modified these technologies to define parergasia in opposition to dementia praecox and other diagnoses that resulted in prolonged hospitalization, primarily by conducting follow-up studies on discharged patients that correlated outcomes with various social factors. After demonstrating how the standardized forms used in these studies limited the possible metrics of recovery, it concludes by suggesting how Meyer's research influenced leaders of the community mental health movement, and prefigured later trends in psychiatric services.<br /> (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)
- Subjects :
- Hospitals, Psychiatric
Humans
Psychiatry
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1573-076X
- Volume :
- 45
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Culture, medicine and psychiatry
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 34338958
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-021-09732-7