Reflexivity and Implication of a “Native Researcher” in the Mental Health Field: the dilemna of investigating

Abstract

Based on P. Bourdieu’s considerations about “reflexive reflexivity” and “participant objectivation” and R. Lourau’s views on participative analysis and its implications, the present study analyses how can a psychologist investigate a mental health team-work while being also a part of it. Is he (or am I) able to produce knowledge in such a situation? Within the context of patients with mental disturbs, I have interviewed professionals, read patient records and attended meetings of the public health service team, while also working for another team. I found myself several times deeply divided between two different proposals and perceptions: one, far more consolidated, which defended the anti-manicomial movement as an end; the other, still in the making, which finds these principles and values rather strange or odd. From the reading of the records, a rather administrative dimension of the practices has emerged: by quoting them, these records have contributed precisely to bond family and neighbors to the service.