Psychiatry as a Nurturing Practice

Abstract

In making science within practices subject to human judgements, the question arises as to where objectivity within practices resides. To answer this question I will elucidate MacIntyre’s view of objectivity within practices, which I argue is related to fabricating practices (using Hannah Arendt’s categories of labour, work and action to arrive at the distinction between nurturing and fabricating practices). I then argue for a parallel kind of objectivity for nurturing practices to that which, I argue, MacIntyre elaborates for fabricating practices, an objectivity based on meaningful use of the word ought. Next I demonstrate how this kind of objectivity can work in practice, taking an example from a publication of the Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance and from real controversies in the practice of psychiatry: the controversy of the named person in the 2003 Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act (Scotland) and controversy over the composition of mental health tribunals.KeywordsMental HealthService UserSymbolic OrderInternal GoodMental Health Service UserThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.