Scripting Addiction: The Politics of Therapeutic Talk and American Sobriety

340 Pages·2010·2.011 MB·English

by  E. Summerson Carr

Scripting Addiction
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Scripting Addiction
the politics of
therapeutic talk and
american sobriety
E. Summerson Carr
p r i n c e to n u n i v e rs i t y p r e s s
p r i n c e to n a n d ox f o r d
Copyright © 2011 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carr, E. Summerson, 1969–
Scripting addiction : the politics of therapeutic talk and American sobriety /
E. Summerson Carr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-0-691-14449-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-691-14450-4
(pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Medical anthropology. 2. Drug abuse—Treatment. 3. Culture—
Semiotic models. 4. Culture and communication. 5. Language and culture. I. Title.
GN296.C37 2011
362.29—dc22
2010016928
British LibraryCataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed onacid-free paper. (cid:1)
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For fostering my love of language and
learning, I dedicate this book to:
my mother, Lynda Elliott Conway,
my father, Franklyn J. Carr III,
and my stepfather, F. Merlin Bumpus
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction
Considering the Politics of Therapeutic Language 1
Chapter One
Identifying Icons and the Policies of Personhood 23
Chapter Two
Taking Them In and Talking It Out 49
Chapter Three
Clinographies of Addiction 85
Chapter Four
Addicted Indexes and Metalinguistic Fixes 121
Chapter Five
Therapeutic Scenes on an Administrative Stage 151
Chapter Six
Flipping the Script 190
Conclusion 224
Notes 239
References 279
Index 317
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Illustrations
Figures
Figure I.1. Fresh Beginnings, the Homeless Family
Consortium (HFC), and funding/partnering agencies 9
Figure 1.1. President Clinton signs the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, “ending
welfare as we kn[e]w it.” 24
Figure 2.1. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s infl uential ecological model 58
Figure 2.2. Ann Hartman’s ecomap 59
Figure 2.3. Gregory Bateson’s and Margaret Mead’s genogram 60
Figure 2.4. “Emotional relationship codes” from the genogram
software GenoPro 61
Figure 2.5. The potential consequences of an HFC agency
assessment 77
Figure 3.1. “Denial,” as pictured in “My Ego” by Mary K.
Bryant 90
Figure 3.2. The topographical model of the addicted subject 93
Figure 3.3. Criteria for Substance Dependence as designated
by theDSM-IV 99
Figure 4.1. “How to Sabotage Your Treatment” 128
Figure 5.1. Framing frames: The work of HFC wordsmiths 163
Figure 6.1. “Flip the Script in 2008” 220
Tables
Table 4.1. Interpreting and Anchoring Deictics 142
Table 5.1. Taxonomy of Collective (Meta)Linguistic Crises 159