The Mindful and Thoughtless Practitioner

This is the first chapter in what makes up Part II of the book—a careful reading across all cases. In their accounts, the participants, implicitly and explicitly, conveyed how they thought others perceived them as practitioners of coercion. The real and imagined gaze of others in turn informed how they perceived themselves as professionals and experienced their work, not least when using coercion. Hence, the argument is made that the practitioners of coercion experience themselves to be part of a surveillance system in which all the parties are monitoring how they are being looked upon by others part of the same system, which in turn influences how they see themselves respectively. The mental health care professional, thus, is not merely an observer of patients, but is also observed. It is an observational system of coercion in which all parts are seeking recognition, but attention and recognition is unequally distributed. The chapter identifies and explores how the practice of coercion—due in part to its unpredictability and demand for collegial loyalty—may enhance a mindfulness of colleagues and a potential thoughtlessness of self and patients.