Health, Disorder, and the Psychiatric Enterprise: Reclaiming Lost Connections

In this chapter, I describe why Benner's insights on human experience are important for understanding psychiatric phenomena. Her stance critiques narrow decontextualized views of what constitutes illness and honors the experiences of individuals and communities who confront and live through challenges. In psychiatry such experiences that become problematic are most often reduced to a list of symptoms, disorders, and technical terms and can obscure personal and collective coping possibilities. In this chapter, diagnoses of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), and schizophrenia are used to illustrate the dangers of classification systems generally - and why the interpretive approach developed by Benner and colleagues paves the way to restoring human connections that can preserve dignity and worth that is necessary for health and healing. The research excerpts spotlighted in this chapter point to the iatrogenic nature and trend of the diagnostic culture of psychiatry. Undoubtedly, diagnoses can bring meaning to experiences and join individuals in suffering. However, they can also serve to disconnect individuals and communities when the meanings are based on the deficit view of the person or persons. This view undermines personal and collective strength and cultural resilience and coping practices.