mental illness Flashcards
Mental illness
Reers to a condition that causes a serious disorder in a persons thinking or behaviour. This may disrupt their functioning in everyday life
The social construction of mental illness
Concept of mental illness changes from time to time and place to place. For example burry and yuill suggest that in the more enlightened 18th century, mental illness was a crime against reason and rationality. It was stigmatised and associated with danger and violence. Those suffering with a mental disorder were perceived as deviants, and often shut away in asyluns, extremes of behaviour have been normal in some societies and as evidence of madness in others. If a person in the UK claimed to be possessed by a spirit or ancestor, society would conclude that person is mentally ill.
Labelling theory
Those with power, label individuals. Doctors label patient ADHD. The patient accepts this label and bhavves in a manner he pericieves ADHD to be. Friends and family act differently towards the patient. The individual with accept this label and internalise it.
Laing 1964 and the study of schizophrenia in family life
Maya abobott entered hospital 10 years before the start of the study as a voluntary patient suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Entry to hospital had resulted from her parents approaching social services to express that their daughter had largely withdrawn from social interaction with them, but on several occasions has threatened to poison them
Thomas scheff being mentally ill
Argues that there is no such thing as mental illness. Its better understood as a category for all bizarre behaviour that cannot be explained through other means. Scheff argued that Poeple who behave bizarrely are not mentally ill, rather their behaviour just does not make sense to others. This theory is influenced by labelling and Marxism
Erving goffman- asylums
Once someone is labelled mentally ill, the other treat them differently, reinterpreting what the mentally ill person says or does. Goffman called spurious interaction meaning whatever action the person undertakes will be evaluated with the knowledge that the person is mentally ill. He found that 66% of the commital interviews he attended did not meet the legal criteria, pshyciratrists thought it was better to commit a person with little evidence of mental illness rather than running the risk for them harming society. Entering a hostile involves what goffman calls a process of mortificoration whereby the patients own identity is replaced by one defined by the institution.
David rosehan- being sane in insane places
Argues that once in an institution, Inamtes hevaiour is routinely treated as evidence of their problems. David rosehan went under cover as a mental patient and once admitted he acted completely normally in the institution yet were still treated as outcasts according to their mental illness.
Walter Gove 1982
Argues that labelling theory approaches to mental illness are over exaggerated and incorrect. Gove rejects the view that most people response to mental illness is a negative way. Many peoples are supportive towards the mentally ill person.
