The Clinical Approach in the Social Sciences

Abstract

A brief historical account is given of the diversity of influences that led the author to adopt a clinical perspective. Clinical sociology has developed in a social and theoretical context dominated by the exact sciences and the death of the subject. The clinical approach offers an alternative way of studying the `total social fact', in Mauss's terms. Some basic issues are examined, such as: the relationship of practice to theory; the power and control of researchers over the object of study; the status of data and of knowledge produced by social actors, especially their `implicit sociology'; the analysis of individual cases as a source of knowledge; interdisciplinarity, neutrality and critical thought. These are basic issues confronting any social researcher.