title: Walking stories: Narratives of mental patients as magic a.
abstract: Mad stories are evocative and metaphoric. They are full of symbols, but we think that those symbols are used in very personal, even idiosyncratic ways. We consider them as incoherent and incomprehensible. They are not 'rational' and do not represent any 'normal' logic. They do not fit into categories. They escape every classification, save that of 'psychotic stories' or 'mad stories'. They are matters out of place. They are viewed as signs of madness and therefore show how much we should value health and normality. They often belong to the underground world in mental hospitals and clinical interaction. This world of stories is feared; therapists and psychiatric nurses often act as if this world does not exist. But when the stories become alive, i.e. acted out, they show their power. In this paper, the author would like to 'de-pathologise' the stories of psychiatric patients and show how they put culture at work and become the 'weapons of the weak' in order to control what usually remains beyond their control. The paper shows that a main dimension of power and force of the stories is their 'embodiment' (patients as walking stories), and argues that through these stories patients gain power to manipulate the course of events and the others' (i.e. professionals) responsive actions.
authors.affiliation: a Medical Anthropology Unit , University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Els
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: VAN Dongen