| Abstract
| - This paper highlights the fact that women are much more likely than men to use psychotropic medications. It proposes the development of a new intellectual framework for understanding and responding to the high use of psychotropic medications by women. The framework is developed using the conceptual space provided by Third Wave feminisms and a Lacanian interpretation of the Hegelian dialectic. The Third Wave is seen as a viable lens for this endeavour since it tolerates contradictions and ambiguity and is radically open to difference and diversity. This new framework can incorporate relevant aspects of the Discourse Model and the Medical Model. It is argued that the Third Wave framework, which includes a postmodern attitude, allows us to make use of both perspectives, since either model alone is inadequate to inform our understanding of why women are prescribed psychotropic medications so much more frequently than are men. The point is that each model by itself is inevitably inadequate. The answers have to be sought from both models, even though these models conflict.
|
