Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5348

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Lupton D.
Consumerism, reflexivity and the medical encounter.
Soc Sci Med 1997 Aug 01; 45:(3):373-81
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBF-3SWXX70-2F&_coverDate=08%2F31%2F1997&_alid=418727754&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5925&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=90880f1077985976a7488a05ece9b0c5

Abstract:

Much emphasis has been placed recently in sociological, policy and popular discourses on changes in lay people’s attitudes towards the medical profession that have been labelled by some as a move towards the embracing of “consumerism”. Notions of consumerism tend to assume that lay people act as “rational” actors in the context of the medical encounter. They align with broader sociological concepts of the “reflexive self” as a product of late modernity; that is, the self who acts in a calculated manner to engage in self-improvement and who is sceptical about expert knowledges. To explore the ways that people think and feel about medicine and the medical profession, this article draws on findings from a study involving in-depth interviews with 60 lay people from a wide range of backgrounds living in Sydney. These data suggest that, in their interactions with doctors and other health care workers, lay people may pursue both the ideal-type “consumerist” and the “passive patient” subject position simultaneously or variously, depending on the context. The article concludes that late modernist notions of reflexivity as applied to issues of consumerism fail to recognize the complexity and changeable nature of the desires, emotions and needs that characterize the patient-doctor relationship.

Keywords:
Attitude to Health* Australia Complementary Therapies/trends Forecasting Humans Patient Participation/psychology* Patient Participation/trends Patient Satisfaction Personal Autonomy Physician-Patient Relations* Qualitative Research Research Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Self Care/psychology* Self Care/trends Trust