Close Readings

I spent a lot of time thinking about the literary school of doing close readings of texts, because that is how I was trained as an undergrad in Drama Lit. To explain the obvious: there must be evidence in the text.

Next I considered the concept in comparison to Psychiatry practice. Considering the scientific evaluation of a person’s psychiatric state as my new preoccupation—and becoming a vocation—had to shed a whole new level of graveness to the endeavor of finding evidence in presented texts.

To reread what I just wrote, and what I’m about to continue into writing, I’d have to think even differenter. Where is the psychology of the reader in relation to me? (More on Reading, Writing, and Readers future posts. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and am looking forward to reading predecessors in this realm with a fresh point of view.)

Surely, the literary texts would continue to be good company as I contemplated Schizophrenia, but it’s obviously necessary to look at texts that are clear in their relevance or preoccupation to it. Certainly the codedness of less explicitly-stated texts can be a study-/ (Whole new genres can be built here)—but—and now thinking into the Legal field—accusations of schizophrenia upon a writer, when there is such a continuing stigma—bring struggles of liability and possible accusations of slander to mind. Plus, without already being a licensed Psychotherapist, one can’t vow close readings as if preemptively qualified to write the analysis.