Psychiatry and Subjectivity. Experiences of Patients in West German Psychiatric Institutions from the 1960s to the Present.

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The experience of psychiatry challenges patients' self-perceptions. But this self-perception changes, sometimes dramatically, against the background of transformations in both the images of mental illness and reforms in psychiatric institutions. This research project explores the self-perceptions of mental-health consumers in view of the institutional changes that have transformed the practice of psychiatry from the 1960s to the present. We describe the subjectifications of (former) patients, i.e. their forms and strategies of regaining the agency and autonomy which had been questioned by their experiences of psychiatry. This exploration refers both to current debates in the psychiatric field about patient autonomy versus restraint as well as to new paradigms in public health policy, including proactivity of patients and prevention.We broaden and interpret the existing data of narrative interviews with consumers of mental health institutions, and place our results in relation to historical research on the transition of psychiatry. Thereby we describe subjectifications of (former) patients and put them in context of changes in psychiatric practice. By these means we offer a typology of interpretation patterns of the patient's subject status, the psychatrized self. This result bears relevance for basic research in sociology and sheds light on the significance of psychiatric reforms for the self-perception of patients.