Assess that mental illness is a social construction
Assess the view that mental illness is a social construction. (20 marks)
A mental illness is a state of mind which affects a person’s thinking, perceiving, emotion or judgement to the extent of which the person requires care or medical treatment in either their interests or interests of another person. However, the definition of mental illness has been criticised by social construction as one of the basic assumptions is that there is no is no such thing as a mental illness.
Becker introduced the labelling theory. The labelling theory is for when we cannot explain or understand somebody else’s behaviour. This is when particularly powerful people such as doctors, politicians and the mass media.
According to Scheff and Szasz ‘mental illness’ is a social construction. Scheff’s view is that a person only gets a mental illness label when other people class their behaviour as abnormal. This is when particularly powerful people such as doctors, politicians and the mass media label those deemed as abnormal, as mentally ill, as their behaviour is ‘unnatural’ and ‘bizarre’ which cannot be explained. Examples of abnormal behaviour would be homosexuality and teenage pregnancy; mostly as they are not traditionalistic views. Szasz’s views are similar to Scheff’s but he also comments on that mental illness in society is deemed as a problem, as it lies with the attitudes of other people, and not the behaviour itself.
Rosenhan is a social psychologist that conducted an experiment of ‘being sane in insane places’. His experiment involved him and other participants faking a mental illness (schizophrenia) to get entry to the psychiatric hospital as patients, and then seeing how long it took the medical professionals to figure out that they weren’t actually insane or mentally ill. Later on, after Rosenhan and his participants were released by his lawyers, Rosenhan got into contact with the psychiatric hospital and told him that he sent in fake patients; but he never sent
A mental illness is a state of mind which affects a person’s thinking, perceiving, emotion or judgement to the extent of which the person requires care or medical treatment in either their interests or interests of another person. However, the definition of mental illness has been criticised by social construction as one of the basic assumptions is that there is no is no such thing as a mental illness.
Becker introduced the labelling theory. The labelling theory is for when we cannot explain or understand somebody else’s behaviour. This is when particularly powerful people such as doctors, politicians and the mass media.
According to Scheff and Szasz ‘mental illness’ is a social construction. Scheff’s view is that a person only gets a mental illness label when other people class their behaviour as abnormal. This is when particularly powerful people such as doctors, politicians and the mass media label those deemed as abnormal, as mentally ill, as their behaviour is ‘unnatural’ and ‘bizarre’ which cannot be explained. Examples of abnormal behaviour would be homosexuality and teenage pregnancy; mostly as they are not traditionalistic views. Szasz’s views are similar to Scheff’s but he also comments on that mental illness in society is deemed as a problem, as it lies with the attitudes of other people, and not the behaviour itself.
Rosenhan is a social psychologist that conducted an experiment of ‘being sane in insane places’. His experiment involved him and other participants faking a mental illness (schizophrenia) to get entry to the psychiatric hospital as patients, and then seeing how long it took the medical professionals to figure out that they weren’t actually insane or mentally ill. Later on, after Rosenhan and his participants were released by his lawyers, Rosenhan got into contact with the psychiatric hospital and told him that he sent in fake patients; but he never sent