The Defensive Function of Medical Language for Parents of Children with Mental Disabilities
Jeongyun Hur, MDiv., PhD. Student, Claremont School of Theology
The medical field, alongside with West of the modern world, places high value on the scientific method, and the objectivity that has been criticized at times for its disenchanted nature.
However, for some patients living with mental disabilities and their families, this objective language can be helpful in empowering them to counter their experiences of the stigmatization they encounter in regard to mental disabilities.
My paper aims to show this through qualitative research, conducted in Claremont, California, on the stories of parents of children with mental disabilities. I provisionally divided the study into triumphal and absurd narratives based on their story line and the kind of expectations—whether it was parents’ acceptance of disabilities or the hope to be cured or in-between— the parents’ stories revealed their attitudes about their children’s mental disabilities. In exploring the rationale behind these two kinds of narratives, I examined parents’ different perspectives on body and mind and the function that was served by medical language. For some of these parents medical language functions as a defensive mechanism to free themselves and their children from social and cultural stigma. What this implies for contemporary medicine and religion is the significance of parent’s faith in scientific objectivity. This research shows that the name of the medical terminology for disabilities, which usually reflects the most objective scientific knowledge, suggested more than it means at face value. Parents rely on the “objectivity” that is represented in the medical naming to counter their experience of the social oppression of stigma imbedded in their daily culture.
The medical field, alongside with West of the modern world, places high value on the scientific method, and the objectivity that has been criticized at times for its disenchanted nature.
However, for some patients living with mental disabilities and their families, this objective language can be helpful in empowering them to counter their experiences of the stigmatization they encounter in regard to mental disabilities.
My paper aims to show this through qualitative research, conducted in Claremont, California, on the stories of parents of children with mental disabilities. I provisionally divided the study into triumphal and absurd narratives based on their story line and the kind of expectations—whether it was parents’ acceptance of disabilities or the hope to be cured or in-between— the parents’ stories revealed their attitudes about their children’s mental disabilities. In exploring the rationale behind these two kinds of narratives, I examined parents’ different perspectives on body and mind and the function that was served by medical language. For some of these parents medical language functions as a defensive mechanism to free themselves and their children from social and cultural stigma. What this implies for contemporary medicine and religion is the significance of parent’s faith in scientific objectivity. This research shows that the name of the medical terminology for disabilities, which usually reflects the most objective scientific knowledge, suggested more than it means at face value. Parents rely on the “objectivity” that is represented in the medical naming to counter their experience of the social oppression of stigma imbedded in their daily culture.