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Abstract
Psychopathologisation, broadly understood as processes that lead to the effects of being psychopathologised, can have considerable consequences for isolating students from education. This can be especially the case for children and young people affected by the racialisation of behaviour and/or socio-economic disadvantage. Drawing on Foucault's analysis of the relationship between the psychiatrist and the asylum in his lectures ‘Psychiatric Power’, the argument is made that these effects can be tantamount to being institutionalised in a mobile asylum. Portrayal of the asylum in the American television series House MD is used to highlight how, if we rely on classic depictions of the asylum–psychiatrist couplet, we risk missing – or minimising, the mobile asylum that some young children experience when they are psychopathologised in schooling.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to the editors of this special issue, Anna Hickey-Moody and Vicki Crowley, for their kind support of this paper. My thanks also to the two universities that hosted me during my sabbatical in 2008: The Beatrice Bain Research Group, University of California, Berkeley, and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.
Notes
1. This discussion occurs in Lecture Eight, 9 January 1974.
2. For a fascinating discussion on the increasing use of biologically based interpretations of the mind in literature see Marco Roth's (Citation2009) essay ‘The rise of the neuronovel’.
3. For a discussion that departs from Foucault's account of the rise of the asylum and the psychiatrist see Wright (Citation1997).
4. Details of the locations have been altered to maintain confidentially. Due to budget constraints the international site selection was made to reflect the original aims of the project (to investigate the occurrence of the high diagnostic rates of behavioural disorders in areas of disadvantage) and to coincide with the locations whre the author took sabbatical leave in 2008 (University of California, Berkeley and University of Cambridge).
5. The Kirkbride Plan was based on ‘moral treatment’ of the insane, an approach that was enthusiastically endorsed by Thomas Kirkbride (Yanni, Citation2007). Moral treatment, developed in the late eighteenth century, and popularised in the nneteenth, departed from what was viewed as punitive and cruel treatment of the insane. The approach stresses ‘respectful and kind treatment under all circumstances, and in most cases manual labor, attendance on religious worship on Sunday, the establishment of regular habits and of self control, diversion of the mind from morbid trains of thought’ (Brigham, Citation1847, p. 1).
6. Premiered in the USA on 21 September 2009; screened in Australia on 31 January 2010.
7. The argument in this essay has benefited from the contributions and criticisms made by the two anonymous reviewers. My thanks for their input.
8. See also my discussion of biopower and biopedagogies (Harwood, Citation2009).
9. This discussion is tentative, and is presented as a first attempt to theorise the power that can confine and detain psychopathologised children.
10. Mental disorders such as ADHD are defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, Citation2000). Disorders that are associated with behaviour problems can include, but are not restricted to ADHD, Conduct Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder. With the application of the concept ‘co-morbidity’, terms may also include such disorders as Bipolar Disorder (Masi et al., Citation2006) or depression (Brown, Citation2008).
11. From an interview conducted by the author in 2008. All names and identifying information has been changed.
12. The stories of Elijah and Martin are challenging because of the issues that they convey. The re-telling of these stories by Nancy could be questioned for its veracity, and to what extent it can be taken as plausible. My view is that these stories, from a highly respected professional who has developed close contact with and the respect of the individuals with whom she works, are valuable and are significant. In this sense, both Nancy's re-telling of these stories, and my own attempt to present them here, is an effort ‘to prick the consciences of readers by inviting a re-examination of the values and interests undergirding certain discourses, practices, and institutional arrangements found in today's schools’ (Barone, Citation1992, p. 143).
13. All names and potentially identifying material has been altered or removed.
14. Preservice teachers and newly qualified teachers rate behaviour problems as a high cause for concern (McMahon, Citation2008, McMahon Citationin press), a point that deserves careful attention if the issue of speculating about behaviour problems and the associated psychopathologisation is to be addressed.
15. The phrase ‘psychopathologised adults’ is used to displace the emphasis from the individual as having a mental disorder and to the processes that identify them.
16. While from the perspective of the principal and his secretary, the rationale for giving chase to Martin may appear sound, the point here is to bring to the fore the power that enabled this to occur, particularly the suspicion that Martin was a danger to himself and may need to be in psychiatric care. This suspicion, and the possibility that it could be acted on, was only possible because of the 5150 legislation.
17. California Law, Welfare and Institutions Code, Section 5150, Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=5431285642+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve.
18. This is a point that deserves to be further explored empirically, since it could add a valuable perspective on institutionalising interpretations of child and youth behaviour. This is especially important from the point of view of the mobile asylum. For example, how might behaviour be differently understood if the institutionalising effects of the mobile asylum are taken into account?
19. While these two stories are from the USA, given the accounts from the participants in the Australian interviews, previous research by the author, together with anecdotal evidence, it is likely that comparable stories exist in Australia and elsewhere. This is an area that could benefit from further research with children and their families.
