Using personal experience in the academic medical humanities: a genealogy

Abstract

The inclusion of personal experience in academic work, especially in the medical humanities, has increased markedly in the recent past. This article traces the roots of this development, arguing that it is not a simply off-shoot of ‘experts by experience’ in mental health, but has its own specific set of precursors and enabling conditions. Three of these are explored in detail, under the headings of ‘psychoanalysis’, ‘social history’ and ‘anthropology’. The continuing influence of psychoanalysis privileges the public expression of personal experience as a vital tool and site for self-development. Social history (from the 1960s onwards) takes ‘experience’ as its privileged object in understanding the past. The tools of twentieth-century anthropology animate much social constructionist and cultural history. This anthropology is based upon the ‘lived experience’ of the anthropologists, who immerse themselves into the life-world of the ‘natives’. The article concludes by cautioning against the unthinking or naive use of experience as a sure foundation for work in the medical humanities, drawing upon the theoretical insights of Joan Scott, Judith Butler and Sarah Shortall.