“Pathological” language: on what basis and decided by who?

This post is about our use of language.

Recently I made a film called “language is the dwelling place of being” about the poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay who is recognised as one of Scotland’s most internationally renowned poet’s.

In his letters, Ian Hamilton Finlay describes, without fondness, several periods in hospital. Ian Hamilton Finlay’s earlier periods of psychiatric hospitalisation were described in “Selections” by his son Alec.

In middle to late life, but not right up to the end, Ian Hamilton Finlay lived his life in exile, in his kingdom of “Little Sparta”

Hamilton Finlay was an artist and wordsmith. His ideas were conceptualised in the form that he termed “concrete poetry” which he defined as: “a model of order, even if set in a place full of doubt”

Hamilton Finlay’s creative ability with language developed into a whole new form of language as an art form in itself. Such ideas, explored with other poets and artists were developed in Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. a journal published by Finlay.

I have often wondered what my colleagues in psychiatry made of Ian Hamilton Finlay. My suspicion is that they might have designated his language as “pathological” I say this as I was taught in my medical training that “language disorder” can be a cardinal feature of mental illness. Indeed in psychotic illnesses, one form of this “disorder” is described as “loosening of associations” and another form, the making of new words “neologisms”. I once heard an eminent professor and his wife, who had met R D Laing at a conference, say “well we think he was mad, he used to Clang a lot”. To Clang is another form of “pathology” and is defined as: “a mode of speech characterized by association of words based upon sound rather than concepts”

Hamilton Finlay used to describe his garden “not as a retreat but an attack”. I now wonder if he was attacking the “pathological” view of psychiatry and/or medical reductionism. If this is the case, I for one, welcome Hamilton Finlay’s attack.

A year or two back, I attended an NHS meeting that had a mixture of senior medical staff and senior managers. I struggled at this meeting to follow some of the language used. Indeed, I gave up trying to understand and spent my time simply recording the language used in the meeting:

“Sign-off the work done to date and migrate into RAG report”

“We need to use the same mapping & gapping analysis”

“I am happy to populate that.”

Below is a short extract of text from Julian Barnes novel “Talking it over”

I would argue that this sort of language could also be considered “pathological” but those at the meeting would surely resist any label of “mental illness”.

My own pet-hates are mechanical metaphors which are now everywhere in “healthcare improvement work”: toolboxes, dashboards, kits, route maps etc. These words imply that we can be treated as machines.

I find myself that the language used by my profession is becoming more detached from everyday humanity.