Structured ambiguity and the definition of psychiatric illness: adjustment disorder among medical inpatients.
Adjustment disorder is one of the most common psychiatric diagnoses given to patients hospitalized for medical and surgical problems. This article argues that the diagnosis, in this context, often serves strategic, non-clinical ends for consultation-liaison psychiatrists, who must negotiate their interstitial position through an essentially ambiguous diagnosis. In these cases, 'adjustment disorder' emerges from and reproduces tensions between such cultural dichotomies as mind/body and social/individual that marginalize psychiatry in medical settings.
Pollock
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Department of Anthropology, SUNY, Buffalo 14261.
D000275:Adjustment Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D010819:Physician's Role; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000592:standards*; D012929:Psychological Distance; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012962:Sociology, Medical