Department Member, Sociology And Social Policy
Research Fellow
Thesis Title: Producing ADHD: An ethnography of behavioural (dis)order
Pat Thomson
About
My current research interests are in qualitative studies of mental health. Since September 2008 I have been working on an ethnographic study of inpatient dementia care. This study aimed to understand the role of staff well-being in the delivery of person centred care, and was funded by the National Institute for Health Research. I recently began a study of stigma in adult mental health services, which aims to build on recent work conducted in Belgium on some of the determinants of self- and social rejection.
My PhD research offers a critical analysis of the rise of the psychiatric diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Using ethnographic data drawn from school and home, I analyse the socio-cultural processes of othering which are required in order for a diagnosis to be made. Informed by Foucault's understanding of power and governance, this analysis attempts to divert attention away from the supposed internal deficits of the child, towards the routine and unexamined discourses of the school and classroom which have limited the developmental possibilities available to adults and children according to the roles of teachers, parents and pupils.
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