Abstract:

The objective of this article is to analyze a psychiatric interview, understood as a genre in the particular institutional context of psychiatry. The analysis uses a Sociolinguistic Interactional perspective (Gumperz, 1982; Tannen, 1984, 1989; Goffman, 1998; Ribeiro, 1994). The research is ethnographically based (Malinowski, 1976; Geertz, 1989), qualitative and interpretative (Gumperz, 1982; Erickson & Shultz, 1998). The interview was filmed in the Institute of Psychiatry at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 2002.
The results show that the doctor set four frames of interaction: i) opening frame, ii) exploratory frame, iii) co-construction of patient’s life experience frame, and iv) closing frame. In these frames, the relations of symetry/assymetry between the participants were analyzed through the discursive constructions used. The doctor used various alignments, among them that of attentive listener and collaborative speaker, which show him to be a participant that evaluates and has opinions. He also encouraged the construction of stories, which allowed the patient to talk about his life experiences and his illness.

Author: Tânia Conceição Pereira