Negotiating Reality

This chapter shows the application of labeling ideas to two particular contexts: sessions with clients by a defense lawyer and by a practicing psychiatrist. It provides a very detailed and explicit contrast between the processes of labeling and normalization. The chapter explains the way in which actions and intentions are constructed in the act of assessing responsibility. The chapter illustrates the excerpts from two dialogues of negotiation will be discussed: a real psychotherapeutic interview and an interview between a defense attorney and his client, taken from a work of fiction. Before presenting these excerpts, it is useful to review some prior discussions of negotiation, the first in courts of law, the second in medical diagnosis. Contrast the format of negotiation used by the psychotherapist. The application of the sociology of knowledge to the negotiation of reality has ramifications that may apply to all of social science.

Negotiation · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Critical Realism in Sociology · Interdisciplinary Cultural and Social Studies · Social Science and Policy Research