The smoking-room as psychiatric patients' sanctuary: a place for resistance.

Full Abstract

This article investigates the significance of the smoking-room for psychiatric patients: for their everyday interactions, activities and perceptions of what is meaningful, also for their positioning as agents concerning their own and fellow patients' illnesses and problems. A social constructionist perspective is used as well as concepts anchored in a phenomenology of architecture and local place. This article is a part of ethnographic study of the daily life within a psychiatric ward using participant observation and conversations and interviews with psychiatric inpatient and staff in a psychiatric hospital. Important themes from our analysis were 'smoking-room as patients''panopticon', 'smoking-room as the patients' sanctuary' and 'patient-led treatment'. We discuss these themes within a framework of seeing the smoking-room as an arena for patient and staff resistance. Patients' resistance is analysed as attempts to maintain their civil status identity and feelings of dignity in an otherwise powerless situation.

Author information

Author/s: Skorpen, A (A); Anderssen, N (N); Oeye, C (C); Bjelland, A K (AK);

Affiliation: Department of Health, Stord/Haugesund University College, Stord, Norway. aina.skorpen(-atsign-)hsh.no

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing (J Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Nov; vol 15 (issue 9) : pp 728-36

Dates: Created 2008/10/10; Completed 2009/02/13;

PMID: 18844798, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00)

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