The authors conducted a qualitative analysis of thirty-seven issues of The DDU Review, a newsletter produced by residents of the Dual Diagnosis Unit, a residential unit for people who had diagnoses of developmental disability and serious mental illness in the Central State Hospital (Indiana, USA). The analysis of the newsletters produced between September 1988 and June 1992 revealed three major themes: 1) the mundane; 2) good behavior; and 3) advocacy. Contrary to the authors’ expectations, the discourse of medicalization—such as relations with physicians, diagnoses, and medications—receive little attention. Instead, the patient-journalists focus on prosaic aspects of institutional life. The patients used their writing as a form self-definition and advocacy. The authors argue that even though it is tempting to consider the patients’ emphasis on good behavior as evidence of institutional control, internalized discipline, and medicalization, a more nuanced interpretation, which focuses on how the patients’ understood their own experiences, is warranted. Researchers must also recognize the ways in which The DDU Review reveals the patient-journalists’ experience of an institutional life that includes non-medical staff (attendants, secretaries, and therapists), varied social relationships among patients, and negotiated freedoms.

作者对The DDU Review的 37 个问题进行了定性分析，由双重诊断部门的居民制作的时事通讯，该部门是中央州立医院（美国印第安纳州）诊断为发育障碍和严重精神疾病的人的住宅单元。对 1988 年 9 月至 1992 年 6 月期间制作的时事通讯的分析揭示了三个主要主题：1）世俗；2）良好的行为；3) 宣传。与作者的预期相反，医学化的话语——例如与医生的关系、诊断和药物——很少受到关注。相反，耐心记者专注于机构生活的平淡无奇的方面。患者使用他们的写作作为一种形式的自我定义和倡导。作者认为，尽管很容易将患者对良好行为的强调视为制度控制、内化纪律、医疗化，更细致入微的解释，侧重于患者如何理解自己的经历，是有必要的。研究人员还必须认识到DDU 评论揭示了患者记者在机构生活中的经历，其中包括非医务人员（服务员、秘书和治疗师）、患者之间不同的社会关系以及协商的自由。