THE MEDICATED SELF

Abstract

This article presents a typology of the medicated self, as developed through in-depth interviews with twenty-two social work students and practitioners. Utilizing an interactionist perspective, the experience of taking psychiatric medication is examined in both samples, using a comparative analysis. Emphasis is placed on the impact of taking psychiatric medication on the sense of self. The data suggest that the development of a medicated self is complex and varied, and includes a small number of those who feel that medication led to an improved self, and the majority who felt damaged by their experience with medication, and expressed varying degrees of ambivalence about its use. Despite this ambivalence, most of our respondents seemed to develop an altruistic, empathetic self geared toward helping others. This self emerged in spite of respondents saying that their self was damaged. Implications are presented, and conclusions and suggestions for further work on the impact of psychiatric medication use on the self are presented.

Citation

Davis-Berman, J. and Pestello, F.G. (2005), "THE MEDICATED SELF", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 28), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 283-308. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(04)28022-X