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In the introduction of the book of Norman Long, Battlefields of Knowledge, Long states that theoretical and the application itself cannot be segregated into their respective venues. His book takes a different perspective specifically by not discriminating between the knowledge of understanding and knowledge of action. Longs book assumes that the theoretical and the pragmatic issues are so intimately entwined that it would be like separating melted ice from your coke. Long stresses that we must work on an actor-oriented approach where we can base new types of theor ization and methodologies. The proposed model suggests that a theoretical technique be developed to take into account the actions of the actors and be able to construe them clearly. It also should show how different analyses work themselves out through accommodation and negotiation.
By this method, we concentrate on the performer and recognize the multiple realities and diverse social practices of a variety of actors. The interaction between diverse social interests encourages social change and is essential when it comes to understanding development processes. The intersection where we have different social organization mixing with one another negotiating is called the interface. The interface is where the social systems interacts in their own worlds and where the different actors see their own realities and work on how to achieve certain goals they may have set for themselves or goals that the society they are in have been set for them. For this paper, I will attempt to process the relation of a drug addict under going rehab with his / her therapist through our actor oriented approach and hopefully something intelligent will come out. As stated above, the actors are the physician and the patient.
It can be noted that such a small group may not produce much of a social change but from trivial matters arise serious obstacles. We may use this interface as to how our society views such a problem and tries to resolve it. Drug addiction in our country has recently become a growing concern for our citizen. Designer drugs have entered our country from illegal drug exporting countries like China or Thailand. And instead of enticing the usual mid-thirties demographic, these pushers peddle their merchandize to young teenagers ranging from twelve to twenty, most of them still easily influenced by their peers.
In order to counter this new scourge that our society faces, we have set up rehabilitation centers or detoxification centers for the addicted ones. These centers run on the premise or theory that addiction can be dealt with the absence of the drug or being able to spend time with other addicts and get support from them through the trying times. The encounter between physicians and patients has long been one of the most complex and subtle forms of social interaction. In theory, the patient states a complaint on which the doctor bases a diagnosis and treatment both which the patient accepts. In practice, the interaction is rarely so simple. Most patients enter the medical world only occasionally, usually as strangers with a dim understanding of medical theory and practice.
In our case only when forced to by the relatives or anyone with authority to order such a treatment. The patient has to go through the emotional rollercoaster that is caused by the loath everyone around the person feels or the persons own personal struggle caused by the conflict between his drug induced needs and the persons values while the therapist may develop a sense of omnipotence over the patient or a detached look towards the patient. The patients goal is to get rid of the addiction and hopefully return to society as a better person which will be of use to the society. More often than not, the patient usually ends up back in the rehab center.
Physicians on the other hand are immersed daily in the medical subculture and their approach is shaped by their professional training and clinical experience. Physicians believe that patients cannot understand or do not want to know the details of the diagnosis. Because of this, they are unable to share the same stage to perform on. In fact the medical and the lay subcultures are so different that common understanding may be reached with great difficulty, especially in cases where wide gulf exists in the social, economic and educational backgrounds of the actors. When an addict checks into a rehab center and meets with his counselors, the two finally get fuse. This is where they have to develop a common ground, the doctor explains the program which the patient has to undergo and the patients inform their doctors what is wrong with them.
They stay in the same compound, usually share the same recreation room, share the same type of food and interact like they know each other intimately. To determine whether the patient is sick both parties commonly enter a subtle negotiation in which each may make compromises in order to reach a mutually acceptable decision. In some cases, the therapist implicitly negotiates a diagnosis with the patient by suggesting the likeliest label to fit the symptoms. If the patient disagrees, the doctor may restate his diagnosis in a much more authoritative way or may try another suggestion. If the patient still disagrees with all diagnoses, the negotiation has surely broken down and the relationship is broken. Longs approach holds a lot of weight but a point that he may have missed it the fact that taking into account how an actor thinks or works requires the viewer to understand the actor intimately in order to fully utilize such an approach.
Ignorance of that fact may be disastrous to the examiner and his work. We may end up boxing ourselves into closed ideas that we were trying to avoid in the first place. There is a call for flexibility and a much more serious response to the voices and practical strategies of local actors.
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