Repositori URV

Identifier: TDX:993

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

Authors:
Paz Reverol, Carmen Laura

Abstract:
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 t