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Date: |
Sun, 1 Oct 2000
17:44:50 -0700 |
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To: |
"MHOCCA List"
<mhocca@egroups.com> |
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From: |
"Andrew Phelps"
<starfish@northcoast.com> |
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Subject: |
Re: [MHOCCA]
“consumer” |
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Celie Gunn wrote:
Yeah, well I don’t know the definitions either but IMN(not so humble)O,
MH is the consumer and the patients are the consumed.
Phil Cushman is a professor of psychology at CSPP Alameda (now called
Alliant University).
He is an advocate of radical reform of the
the social science behind the present mental health system (a
‘hermeneuticist’, or specialist in ‘interpretation’).
Also he was
a historian before he became a psychologist. His work, and his
recent book Constructing
the self, constructing America, is closely
focused on the notion of client as ‘consumer’. He traces it to the
‘consumer psychology’ of the 70s, 80s & since. In lieu of having
an adequate agenda about helping people, the profession has adopted
the social agenda of the time, whence the idea of receiving services
as ‘consuming’. Which is to say, there is a strong historical reason
for this choice based on (1) the fashions of the times and (2) the
limitations of the mental health service delivery system. Both of
these reasons it goes w/o saying are rotten reasons for us to
term ourselves ‘consumers’!
Andrew Phelps
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