En selvfølgelig succes

– en kritisk udforskning af patientuddannelsers subjektiveringspraksis

Abstract

Patient education programmes are becoming increasingly common within the communal health sector in Denmark, and patients are to a larger extent positioned as (professionalised) collaborators in their own treatments. This paper examines the Danish municipal patient education programme “Lær at tackle angst og depression” (“Learn to manage anxiety and depression”). The objective of this patient education programme is to educate its course participants to (self)manage their anxiety and/ or depression disorder (in optimal ways) in their respective everyday lives, by introducing a large array of recommendations on how to achieve an optimal self-management; building on evidence based knowledge and organised as a peer-to-peer initiative.

With conceptual awarenesses from critical psychology, governmentality theory and poststructuralism the article explores how the course aims at shaping participants’ ways of conducting their everyday life as well as their self-understanding in ways that fit the rationales of the course. The article offers a critical comment on the lack of reflexivity displayed in relation to the subjectification processes that seem to be naturalised in the course setting: these imply an individualisation of problems and an adaptation mindset, offering clear-cut directives for who and how to be, if one is to be perceived as successfully taking responsibility for one’s condition. The article unfolds how the course setting becomes a particular space for negotiations: of positions, self-understanding and normality.