The Indispensability of Critique: Reflections on Bearing Witness to Mental Health Discourse

Abstract

Reflecting on two mental health examples from our practice, we demonstrate how in the instances that critique is absent, the results can be catastrophic. Drawing on Foucauldian theory, we propose the idea of critique, known as the vigilant tempering of governance (or the ‘conduct of conduct’). We advance that critique is an indispensable health resource for the practicing mental health nurse and for nursing more broadly, without which nursing risks participating in the reproduction of hegemonic discourses and practices. Critique, in this paper, is theorized as a tool to be included in the nurse’s repertoire, that which can unlock a variety of ontological and epistemological possibilities. We discuss some reasons why nursing critique is constrained and offer questions for further reflection and critical consideration.