Affiliation:
1. Walter R. Gove is Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Vanderbilt University. At present he is living in a remote part of the canyonlands of southern Utah where he combines his sociological research with a variety of outdoor activities. He has published widely in the areas of mental health, gender, family, criminology, deviance, aging and biosociology.
Abstract
This paper provides a new way of conceptualizing the career of the mentally ill. Most persons who experience an episode of a serious mental disturbance lead a normal life, while a few persons lead lifetimes that revolve around their mental disorders. The processes leading to either result can only be understood by integrating the traditional labeling and psychiatric perspectives with lay understandings of the concepts of “mental illness” and “nervous breakdowns.” A selection of key concepts from these perspectives leads to a better understanding of the different paths persons take as they move through the pre-patient, in-patient, and post-patient phases of the “career of the mentally ill.” This perspective makes understandable a number of counterintuitive relationships. For example, it explains why most hospitalized mental patients (1) have a negative stereotype of the “mentally ill,” (2) do not perceive themselves as “mentally ill, yet (3) perceive themselves as benefiting from treatment, and (4) do not progress into a career of secondary deviance.
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health,Social Psychology
Cited by
29 articles.
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