Controllers and controlled: an analysis of participant constructions of outpatient commitment

This paper utilises qualitative data to examine outpatient commitment from two points of view: clinicians (the controllers) and clients (the controlled). Outpatient commitment is a legal mechanism whereby ‘mentally ill’ individuals are court-ordered to report to their community mental health centre for treatment. In this paper I provide the reader with an understanding of how outpatient commitment works by allowing clinicians and clients to describe the meaning outpatient commitment has for them. While the experience of outpatient commitment varies, and supports the contention that there are multiple definitions of reality, it is clear that in general clinicians favoured the greater control over clients’ outpatient commitment provided and clients were cognisant of the greater liberty it afforded them. This has important theoretical implications for research into medicalisation and social control, in that providers and clients interpret medical dominance and ideology differentially. Consequently I analyse the interpretations of controllers and controlled from those sociological perspectives relevant to the issues of ideology, power, and social control. I conclude by calling for further investigation of those agents who seek to engage in ‘heretical discourse’ (Bourdieu 1991) which challenge dominant medical constructions.