To speak with the other's voice: reducing asymmetry and social distance in mental health care admission interviews

BONNIN, JUAN EDUARDO

Journal of Multicultural Discourses

Taylor and Francis

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2014 vol. 9 p. 149 - 171

1744-7143

The aim of this article is to discuss the adoption of characteristic features of the interlocutor´s ?voice? in mental health care admission interviews at a public hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We will argue that patients adopt bureaucratic and psychiatric terms in order to decrease asymmetry and reorient the activity conducted between professional and client. On the other hand, professionals tend to consider social-class, age, ethnicity or religion when adopting the patient´s voice in an attempt to decrease social distance. We understand that these strategies are employed to accomplish different goals during the interview: to the patient, it is a way to show competence in the activity of medical consultation, indexing the highly valued voices of State institutions and psychiatric knowledge., while to the professionals, it is a strategy to achieve clinical goals by decreasing social distance and enhancing transference. Analysis of data will show the unequal distribution of voicing options for participants: while patients attempt to reduce asymmetry despite social distance, psychotherapists try to decrease social distance but maintain asymmetry.