The share of others. A sociological survey of families and legal regulations concerning mental disorders.

Antoine Printz
 

will publicly defend his dissertation.
"The Role of Others. A Sociological Study of
Family and Legal Regulations Governing Mental Disorders"
for the Doctor of Political and Social Sciences degree.

10 june 2025 (2pm) - Local P02 (Saint-Louis Bruxelles)

Abstract
The thesis focuses on how certain types of disorders, which are both ordinary and extraordinary, are managed within families, up to the point of making a final request for compulsory hospitalisation. Drawing on a body of interviews, ethnographic data and documentary evidence on the 'observation' procedure, the thesis examines how relatives transform the experience of a disorder into a psychiatric problem in a context characterised by the increasing prevalence of private forms of regulation.
It demonstrates how these disorders are defined, problematised and managed within ordinary relationships over time, before becoming the subject of institutional intervention. These situations are analysed as micropolitical sequences in which relatives engage in interpretation, regulation and remediation while having to contend with a legal framework based on the presumption of capacity and individual responsibility.
By focusing on family situations involving conflicts, expectations and moral dilemmas, the thesis proposes a sociology of the regulation of mental health issues that considers how legal, moral and political conceptions influence what people can do and ask for when dealing with these types of disorders. The analysis thus articulates the situated dynamics of everyday life with general forms of psychiatric law, social policies, and contemporary transformations of responsibility in care.

Members of the jury    
Prof. Jean De Munck (UCLouvain), promoteur et secrétaire du jury
Prof. Mathieu Berger (UCLouvain), co-promoteur
Prof. Sophie Thunus (UCLouvain), présidente du jury
Prof. Frédéric Schnoenaers (Université de Liège)
Prof. Benoit Eyraud (Université de Lyon, CNRS, France)
Dr. Carole Gayet-Viaud (CNRS-CESDIP, EHESS, France)