UCLA

Through a multidisciplinary approach based in anthropological theory, participant observation methodology, and psychiatric practice, this dissertation explores the lived interplay between psychotic mental illness and functional dependency in seven ethnographic cases of patients, families, and medical providers. Chapters address historical context, the spaces (i.e. homes, jails, shelters, streets) in which treatment and care are administered to psychotic and dependent persons, the ways in which psychiatric crises are handled by social workers and police officers, and the psychiatric and medical patient outcomes when basic needs are neglected. A conclusion and appendices propose clinical and social interventions to decrease this neglect and to increase patient empowerment.