TY - JOUR
T1 - The social constructions of drug users in professional interventions
AU - Albertín, Pilar
AU - Cubells, Jenny
AU - Iñiguez, Lupicinio
PY - 2011/6/1
Y1 - 2011/6/1
N2 - This qualitative study analyses the construction of a subject who uses drugs (injected drugs) so as to offer psychosocial proposals for social healthcare interventions within this collective, and thereby contribute to social healthcare policies that optimise treatment for drug use. The results indicate that identity is connected to positions that are activated in interactions and relationships between users and professionals in various day-to-day contexts of healthcare and treatment. We have labelled these activated positions: therapeutic, drug-sensory, consumerist, legal-repressive and group-community. Understanding them provides clues that may improve interventions in health and legal contexts. These clues include understanding the tensions between the subject and the substance, considering the stigmatised image and identity, and supporting the idea of the existence of dilemmas in users and professionals, as this may allow transformations to occur in the mutual relationships that are established.© 2011 GAPS.
AB - This qualitative study analyses the construction of a subject who uses drugs (injected drugs) so as to offer psychosocial proposals for social healthcare interventions within this collective, and thereby contribute to social healthcare policies that optimise treatment for drug use. The results indicate that identity is connected to positions that are activated in interactions and relationships between users and professionals in various day-to-day contexts of healthcare and treatment. We have labelled these activated positions: therapeutic, drug-sensory, consumerist, legal-repressive and group-community. Understanding them provides clues that may improve interventions in health and legal contexts. These clues include understanding the tensions between the subject and the substance, considering the stigmatised image and identity, and supporting the idea of the existence of dilemmas in users and professionals, as this may allow transformations to occur in the mutual relationships that are established.© 2011 GAPS.
KW - Heroin users
KW - Identities
KW - Positions
KW - Social healthcare interventions
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02650533.2010.548859
DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/02650533.2010.548859
M3 - Article
VL - 25
SP - 217
EP - 232
JO - Journal of Social Work Practice
JF - Journal of Social Work Practice
SN - 0265-0533
ER -