Selected Writings in Medical Sociological Research by Michael Bloor

Author:Michael Bloor [Bloor, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138352049
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2020-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

Individual ideological dissent

The near-absence of collective ideological dissent in therapeutic communities and health visiting may reflect the general judgement that resistance is normally localized and specific and only rarely has a unique focal point (Cousins and Hussain 1984: 243). Individual ideological dissent was more common. In health visiting such individual dissent was covert, whereas in therapeutic communities both covert and overt individual ideological dissent was encountered.

Many of the mothers challenged the legitimacy of health-visiting discourse. The mothers considered mothering, or infant care, to be essentially a lay skill developed in the course of practical experience with infants, usually under the guidance of women who were themselves experienced mothers. Consistent with this view, the great majority of our sample regarded personal experience of infants to be greatly superior to the theoretical or book knowledge which, they assumed, formed the basis of health-visiting expertise. Accordingly, experienced lay advisers were more highly valued than professional sources of advice:

Half of the people who try tae tell ye aboot weans [children] have no’ got weans o’ their own. Ah mean, they’re just readin’ off books an’ that. Ah prefer tae go tae people that’s got experience. Ah mean, they just laugh at them up there [clinic]. A health visitor wi’ nae kids trying tae tell a woman that’s got five whit tae dae?

Associated with this view was the belief, expressed by three-quarters of our sample, that health visitors should themselves be mothers. Since our mothers believed that personal experience of infant care was central to mothering skills, it followed that one could not possibly be competent to offer guidance on the subject without having had first-hand experience of motherhood oneself. Health visitors without such experience simply lacked credibility:

I liked the second health visitor I had. She was an older woman, married with a family of her own and she knew things. The first one was just hopeless - a young, unmarried girl. It was just text-book stuff. They don’t really understand. I don’t think anyone can unless they’ve had a baby themselves.

Covert ideological dissent could be heard being voiced in therapeutic communities when no staff were present. Bloor was particularly aware of such criticisms in the day hospital where he began his participant observation work as a member of the patient group, only subsequently switching to spend more of his time with staff members. The content of such dissent varied considerably. One patient who was undergoing his third stint as patient compared the current treatment regime unfavourably with his past experiences, which he had found invaluable. Another patient descried what he perceived as an unwonted staff emphasis on ‘yer child days’. However, it was not evident that the content of covert dissent varied very much from that of overt dissent. In reality confronting communities, the redefinitions of communities, staff were a common focus of individual dissent. In the following fieldnote extract, the same patient who had covertly complained about the emphasis on ‘child days’ also overtly complained about staff harping on child-parent relationships:

In the small

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