Mental illness and suicide

Question 1

Lemert

Answer 1

Some individuals do not easily fit in with other people, causing them to be excluded for being odd. The individuals negative response to being excluded is the beginning of his secondary deviance and gives people a further reason to exclude him. They may begin discussing ways to deal with his ‘difficult’ personality, confirming the individual’s paranoid suspicion that he is being conspired against, and his reaction to this confirmation justifies the fears for his mental health and can lead to him being officially labelled and possibly placed in a hospital against his will. As a result, ‘mental patient’ becomes his master status and the lens that society views him through and uses as an explanation for all his actions

Question 2

Goffman

Answer 2

Upon admission to a mental hospital, the inmates old identity is replaced with a new one. This is achieved through degradation rituals like confiscating personal effects.

Question 3

Braginski et al

Answer 3

Some mental patients are able to manipulate symptoms so as to appear well enough to be allowed freedom of movement around the hospital, but not well enough to be discharged.