Therapeutic Professions and the Diffusion of Deficit
Kenneth J. Gergen, Swarthmore College
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Summer 1990, Vol. 11, No.
3, Pages 353 [107]-368 [122], ISSN 0271-0137, ISBN 0-930195-05-1
The mental health professions operate largely
so as to objectify a language of mental deficit. In spite of their humane intentions,
by constructing a reality of mental deficit the professions contribute to hierarchies
of privilege, reduce natural interdependencies within the culture, and lend
themselves to self-enfeeblement. This infirming of the culture is progressive,
such that when common actions are translated into a professionalized language
of mental deficit, and this language is disseminated, the culture comes to construct
itself in these terms. This leads to an enhanced dependency on the professions
and these are forced, in turn, to invent additional terms of mental deficit.
Thus, concepts of infirmity have spiraled across the century, and virtually
all remaining patterns of action stand vulnerable to deficit translation. Required
within the professions are new linguistic formulations that create a reality
of relationships without evaluative fulcrum.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Kenneth J. Gergen, Ph.D.,
Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore,
Pennsylvania 19081.