Defiance

Abstract

Abstract Defiance has been praised, blamed, and vilified. This makes sense if one understands defiance as a virtue with vices and an intermediate condition. Yet social conditions frequently associate negative interpretations with people who are oppressed, including people who have mental challenges and distresses, such that it turns out that defiant mentally ill people, especially people whose social locations implicate race, gender, ethnic and religious minorities are interpreted as having a vice and clamped down rather than being listened to and treated as possibly giving a legitimate and reasonable response to oppressive or unjust interactions or conditions. Defiance is sometimes a virtue for people with mental illnesses. Therefore, they should not automatically be assumed to be either mad or bad for being defiant. Sometimes defiant behavior is even a step toward flourishing. Clinicians too are sometimes rightfully defiant, even though norms and practices of psychiatry may consider such behavior to be blameworthy.