Padecimientos y tratamientos en torno al alcohol: representaciones y prácticas

Identificador:  TDX:993

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX993

Autors:  Paz Reverol, Carmen Laura

Resum:
Abstract: The starting point of this investigation is the interest in describing and analyzing the representations and practices of persons with alcohol problems and the therapists in a Attention Center for Drug-Dependants in a medium size city of Catalunya. Our goal centers on analyzing how people with alcohol problems, identify, name and interpret the alcohol related illness and how they carry out their health care practices according to different medical models. To this end, the experiences of 22 persons with alcohol problems have been gathered, 14 men and 8 women, and of 16 professionals (physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses, intercultural mediators) working at said center. The ethnographic work has allowed us to gather the narratives of the users as well as of the therapists with regard to the illness and its treatments; also with regard to the evolution and perspectives of the Attention Center for Drug-Dependants from the therapist point of view as social actors. The method has been ethnography centered on point of view of the actor, privileging the actors, during one year, time shared with persons with alcohol problems, as well as with the therapists, in order to grasp how they deal with the illness and the treatment, circumscribed to a biomedical field and also away from it. Profound interviews and participating observations were used as methodological techniques. With regard to the problem considered within the complex field of drug-dependency, according to the results of the analysis we can see the importance that the hegemonic biomedical discourse has on its subjectivities and perceptions. With regard to persons with alcohol problems, the main contribution has been to gather their experiences and life-stories of alcohol related illness, and the way it has affected their lives, the treatments and health attention practices and the formulation of short, medium and long range projects with the intention of reaching abstinence or a moderate consumption of alcohol. One of the most outstanding aspects of the therapist is the importance to be listened instead of being the one who has to listen. Some professionals point out that the “Margination” of the subjects under their care, impregnates them. They also express that after the emergency, and the impact of the drug problematic in the 80´, the same has been considered to be banal, and that currently some projects focused on certain areas are receiving less attention. Several points of coincidence and homogeneity have been found among the discourse of the therapists with regard to their representations and approaches in the context of the institution for which they work, but there are also certain nuance that allows us to speak of differences, Beyond the heterogeneities and the homogeneities in the discourses and practices, an integrative and dialogical will emergences that imposes a multi-dimensional focus to analyze drug consumption and its repercussions on public health in the beginning of the XXI century.