S u m m a r y

Holma J (1999)

Postmodernism, narrative and psychosis

Psykologia 34(4):322-328. Helsinki ISSN 0355-1067.

 

The aim of this paper is to highlight recent theoretical developments in family therapy and in the psychotherapy of psychosis. In the family therapy context there has been discussion of therapy as a linguistic system, as stories and narratives and in the light of postmodernism and social constructionism. From the social constructionist framework acute psychosis and schizophrenia form an interesting diagnostic category in which the diagnostic features are based on differences in experience and a shared socially constructed reality. The multiplicity favored by postmodern therapy would imply that psychosis is somehow a positive state. According to postmodernism, the idea of the permanent self is merely an illusion; postmodern thinking prefers a multiplicity of self-accounts and noncommitment to any of them. From the therapeutic point of view these cannot be preferred in the treatment of psychosis.

Some narrative points of view on the treatment of psychosis will be presented here.

 

Key words:

Postmodernism, narrative, psychosis, therapy.

 

Juha Holma, PhD, Dept. of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, P.O.Box 35, FIN-40351 Jyväskylä, Finland. jholma@psyka.jyu.fi