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Peer support trumps drug cocktails: cultural views of treatment options for persons with bipolar and depressive disorders

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dc.contributor.authorBatchelder, Greg, author
dc.contributor.authorSnodgrass, Jeffrey, advisor
dc.contributor.authorKwiatkowski, Lynn, committee member
dc.contributor.authorDik, Bryan, committee member
dc.date.accessioned2007-01-03T08:11:01Z
dc.date.available2007-01-03T08:11:01Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.description.abstractIn this thesis I propose that participants of a peer-support group for depression and bipolar disorder cognitively "model" their conditions in culture-particular ways. Specifically, I suggest that these patients embrace a particular clinical storytelling process that helps them to regulate their daily personal habits and bodily states, while seeing as ineffective and even potentially detrimental the drug regimens more commonly favored in U.S. psychiatry. I argue that patients' fixing of control and responsibility for cure are on the clinical encounter and on their own practice is cultural: involving shared in socially transmitted understandings of how mental health and healing work, a particular reaction to a biomedicine more dominant in U.S. society. Further, I show that being "consonant" or in sync with the shared cultural model I call "managing the disorder" correlates with improved symptomology. I suggest that this improvement may be the result of social support and reduced stress due to the feelings of belonging to the group- a process referred to in the literature as "cultural consonance"- as well as the actual strategies which participants employed in addition to, or in some cases, instead of, their medications. Marijuana use and religion/spirituality were also sometimes mentioned as factors which contributed to helping patients manage their disorders. For this project, these themes were explored in the academic literature, through participation in the peer-support group, in semi structured interviews, and quantitatively through survey data. I suggest that studies of this type may contribute to understanding and evaluating treatment models among various cultural groups.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediummasters theses
dc.identifierBatchelder_colostate_0053N_11237.pdf
dc.identifierETDF2012500204ANPO
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10217/68091
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2000-2019
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.subjectbipolar disorder
dc.subjectcultural consonance
dc.subjectcultural models
dc.subjectethnography
dc.subjectpeer support groups
dc.subjectpsychological anthropology
dc.titlePeer support trumps drug cocktails: cultural views of treatment options for persons with bipolar and depressive disorders
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineAnthropology
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Arts (M.A.)

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