The «psychiatric gaze», delusional realities and paranoid atmospheres

Article

Abstract

[In English]

The «psychiatric gaze» developed around 1800 in different European countries corresponding to the paradigmatic change in medicine. Its prominent aspect is the exploration of the person at hand through to his inner reality, resulting in a paranoid atmosphere. Nevertheless psychiatric knowledge allows the differentiation of a delusional and a non-delusional reality. The delusional reality is understood as a reality structured via incorrigible meanings and interpretations and the rejection of alternative explanations, thereby replacing belief with knowledge. People working in psychiatry are aware of the problem that the psychiatric knowledge is not absolute, even if it seems to claim this absoluteness in day-to-day work. In order to prevent a delusional quality of ones own day-to-day understanding of others it appears necessary to preserve a self-critique that is fostered by the insight that the question Who am I? cannot be answered exhaustively by human beings.