Question

Read the following passage.

In the late nineteenth century, the integration of photography into psychiatric practice was largely championed by empirical positivists. This group argued that the camera provided an unmediated, objective record of physiological symptoms. They maintained that photographic plates could capture the exact muscular contractions associated with various mental states, free from the subjective bias of medical illustrators. However, a contingent of contemporary scholars known as narrative theorists strongly contested this view. Narrative theorists argued that psychiatric photography was inherently theatrical, often requiring patients to hold poses or exaggerate expressions to conform to a physician’s preconceived diagnostic categories. Rather than documenting raw physiological truth, these photographs, the narrative theorists claimed, were heavily mediated artifacts that stripped patients of their personal histories. They maintained that by framing the patient merely as a specimen of disease, the resulting images reinforced an unequal power dynamic and obscured the complex, subjective reality of mental illness.

Based on the passage, which of the following claims about late nineteenth-century psychiatric photography would the narrative theorists most likely endorse? (Select all that apply)