Noncompliance as resistance

In Confessions of a Noncompliant Patient, Judi Chamberlin explodes the notion of the "good patient." If to be good means to acquiesce to what the doctors believe is best, she is bad and unbroken. She observes, "being a good patient becomes more important than getting well." For her, recovery means "regaining belief in oneself." This process of reclamation includes a personal choice about the role of medication. She evokes a feminist understanding of consent in this shared decision between patient and doctor, "what part of 'no' don't you understand?" Calling on her decades of activism in the psychiatric survivor/consumer/ex-patient movement, Chamberlin celebrates her noncompliance as resistance, "the triumphant dance of the spirit that will not die."

What I value about Chamberlin's perspective is that it is based in lived experience and not blind ideology. In this polemic, she still respects her peers that find medication to be helpful for their recovery journeys. We psychiatrists may take a lesson from Chamberlin to open our minds to our patients' lived experience and not give blind allegiance to diagnostic classifications and treatment algorithms.

Reference:

Chamberlin, J. (1998). Confessions of a noncompliant patient. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing, 36(4), 49-52. Retrieved from: https://cpr.bu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/chamberlin1998b.pdf