Volume 6, Number 4, 483-493, DOI: 10.1007/s11673-009-9195-9

Pastoral Power and the Confessing Subject in Patient-Centred Communication

Christopher Mayes

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Abstract

This paper examines the power relations in “patient-centred communication”. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault I argue that while patient-centred communication frees the patient from particular aspects of medical power, it also introduces the patient to new power relations. The paper uses a Foucauldian analysis of power to argue that patient-centred communication introduces a new dynamic of power relations to the medical encounter, entangling and producing the patient to participate in the medical encounter in a particular manner.

Keywords  Pastoral power - Patient-centred - Confession - Michel Foucault

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