The Sociological Ctionalist Approach To Mental Illness

Mental health is included in the WHO’s definition of health but the different ways in which mental health is viewed in society and the medical world complicates defining mental health and general health itself . Firstly we look at the lay definitions of mental health and illness , Pilgrim and Rogers ( 1999 ) that every culture has different opinions on mental health but that we are not indifferent people who are “ sad , frightened or unintelligible in their conduct “. We then look at mental health from a medical perspective , most psychiatrists use the illness framework involving diagnosis , prognosis , aetiology and treatment ( Pilgrim and Rogers ,1999 ) These definitions do not relate to each other so we now look at the sociological
Mental illnesses is seen to be ‘’Produced within a person ‘’ due to their exposure to certain stresses (Clarke, 2010). However there are disadvantages to this perspective, it does not take into account the variety of causes of mental health like biological causes or genetic factors or the persons own experience of mental health and lay opinions on mental health ( Pilgrim and Rogers 1999 ) . It only looks at the social disadvantages and stressful events and as causing and defining mental illness. Another perspective is societal reaction which involves the concept of “Labelling theory “. Labelling theory looks at the categorisation of certain behaviours as deviant .Birchenall and Birchnall (2000) explain famous sociologist Howard Beckers view on the role of labelling in mental illness; labelling is described as being fallible and that it occurs due to people’s reactions to certain behaviours rather than behaviour itself being deviant. However this theory is fallible as certain behaviours can become acceptable or unacceptable at any given time e.g. before 1973 the