It is as if the very atmosphere of the ward is contaminated by a terrifying yet invisible environmental pollution which cannot easily be symbolised, nor can it be avoided or ignored –regardless of whether or not one is a wearer of the ‘white coat’. As was the case with Foucault’s historical lazar-houses and the fictional citizens of Camus’ plague-stricken town, the anxiety of the perverse panopticon gives rise to a very real psycho-somatic fear of relationally transmitted dis-eases as well as the omnipresent threat that it might manifest itself as real physical violence. In their contaminated states of mind, they then present a clear and present danger to those who they watch over. Rather than socialising, the perverse panopticon provides a context within which pro-social forces can be corrupted and staff, as the arbiters of some of these would-be pro-social forces, can become contaminated. This reciprocal process of observation and scrutiny in itself creates what we have called a perverse panopticon (Scanlon and Adlam 2011a) in which all are observed and related to by all – through conscious and intentional scrutiny, as well as the more primitive forms of unconscious communication rooted in processes of projective and introjective identification. Nursing stations that were set up to enable nurses to observe patients, have also become goldfish bowls within which nursing staff can be constantly observed and scrutinised by them.
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