Researching mental health: Pathology in a postmodern world

Abstract

The invention of madness led to the professional practice of mental health that has as its main aims the identification and treatment of mental illness. Traditionally, notions of madness and sanity are polarised, with sanity being linked to functionality and madness being aligned with dysfunction. While such a dichotomy is always questionable, currrent studies of mental illness reflect the social dissolution of such stark categorization. Indeed, it could be argued that this divergence is sensible, given that behaviours which might typically be described as indicators of mental illness could be considered as reasonable protective mechanisms. Contemporary approaches to researching mental health problems focus on the 'madness of the other', with little attention being paid to the madness of research itself or, indeed, to the researcher's own madness. This paper argues that paying attention to the madness of those producing mental health research in the academy (or is it the asylum?) may offer insight into the devolution of madness. Further exploration in this direction may show how the research process itself could be facilitated and enriched by the rehabilitation of such madness.