ET ANTROPOLOGISK BLIK PÅ PSYKIATRISK SYGDOMSOPFATTELSE: Sociale og kulturelle aspekter af en sygdomsmodel for skizofreni

Resumé

This article is about the cultural perception of schizophrenia among psychiatric

staff in Denmark. The author argues that it is possible to identify a shared and

coherent perception of the disease among the staff and illustrates this by introducing

and discussing the theoretical concept of disease models. It is further is

argued that the field of psychiatry is a pertinent environment for identifying a

disease model among staff. After surveying a number of other studies, the disease

model of schizophrenia is presented. It is a model where medicine and behaviour

play dominant roles and where concepts of stability and chronicity are the major

characteristics of the disease. Furthermore, the author presents a discussion on

how the psychiatric staff seems to comprise the dominant social group in the

psychiatric wards and therefore plays the major role in determining treatment