Madness, Love, and Paranoia: A Study of a Middle-aged Psychotic Patient’s Journey Through Recovery

• Main Authors: Chialing Tsai, 蔡佳玲
• Other Authors: Yu-Chan Li
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/e3b4dn

碩士 === 國立臺北護理健康大學 === 生死與健康心理諮商系 === 104 === 　　　This interpretive study aims to explore how a 57-year-old male patient with paranoid delusions survived and transformed his madness into a state of creativity and renewal. Based on Anthropological participant observation and 8 in-depth　non-structured interviews, this research finds that after receiving years of medical treatments the patient gradually settled into a “half world ( American sociologist E. Goffman’s term), albeit confined two forms of changes arose wherein. Through the vertical change he built a spiritual alliance with the Christian God. Later painting secured him a social role of painter and redeemed his masculinity, he was able to give/take promises and re-marry. The horizontal change kept him engaged in artwork producing as daily practices on the one hand, and intimacy nurturing as endeavors to lead a stable, loving life on the other. The research goes on to hypothesize that for psychotic patients in general, religion, work, and love are three musts on their journey through recovery. Their seeking/witnesses of God/gods in their illness narratives should not be ignored. Art- making grants them the seclusion and inner liberation they need, hence could be more vigorously adopted in occupational therapy. Finally the intimate respect of their spouses, when fostered and shown, could set them free from unspeakable pains of the “half world .”