Abstract
Bipolar disorder is among the top 10 causes of disability worldwide. It is managed through a combination of medical and psychotherapeutic interventions, but finding an effective treatment is often a long process of trial-and-error, that medical professionals and people diagnosed with this condition engage upon. This article investigates how people diagnosed with bipolar disorder enact lay expertise about the treatment of this condition online. Using De Certeau’s (1988) theory of everyday practices, three tactics are identified—complexity, uncertainty, and individualization—through which people diagnosed creatively adapt medical knowledge on bipolar disorder, to render their personal experiences and views on treatment more authoritative. It is suggested that through their technological features, which allow for the accumulation and refinement of the insights contributors share, blogs may function as digital repositories of patient experiences and may thus help facilitate collective processes of knowledge production. Online data were collected from two blogs, which were selected using the Google index as relevance indicator, and were analyzed through computer-mediated discourse analysis.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 458-477 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Health (London) |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2019 |
Funding
I am very grateful to the editors of this special issue for their generous support, advice, and constructive comments. I have learned a lot from Sally Wyatt and Tamar Sharon, who have offered encouragement and helpful feedback throughout the process of writing this article. Special thanks to Sergio Sismondo and Marcello Aspria for the valuable suggestions they provided at a PhD Writeshop organized by The Netherlands Graduate School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC). I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for prompting me to think further and to improve the manuscript. Warm thanks to Sally, Hortense, Lisa, and my mother for their support at a difficult time for me personally, while finalizing this article. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research on which this article is based was supported by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), (grant number PGW-14-07/ 2014). The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article: The research on which this article is based was supported by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), (grant number PGW-14-07/ 2014).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Netherlands Graduate School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture | |
| The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research | |
| WTMC | |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | PGW-14-07/ 2014 |
Keywords
- tactics; bipolar disorder;