The professional construction of ‘paranoia’ and the discursive use of diagnostic criteria

This study examined the ways in which five mental health professionals talked about paranoia. A discourse analysis (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) suggested that interviewees positioned themselves, and were themselves positioned, by a number of discourses, or systematic ways of talking, in relation to this topic. These discourses appeared to serve a number of functions including the maintenance of professional legitimacy. Interviewees used a number of rhetorical strategies (including exploiting the range and ambiguity of diagnostic definitions, criteria and theories) in order to meet challenges, for example that paranoid beliefs might be true.