A Sociology of Mental Health and Illness

by Pilgrim, David; Rogers, Anne

• ISBN13: 9780335203475
• ISBN10: 0335203477
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-07-01
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Summary

Praise for the first edition of A Sociology of Mental Health and Illness:"I would recommend this book highly as an essential text for Mental Health Branch nursing."Philip Lister, Nurse Tutor, The Hereford & Worcestershire College of Nursing and Midwifery"Pilgrim and Rogers' text offers an excellent starting point for those wanting an overall introduction to the sociological issues, covering a wide range of perspectives. Written with undergraduates and mental health professionals in mind, it fills a huge void in the literature."Mick Carpenter, Department of Applied Social Studies, University of Warwick"Given the introductory intention of the authors, this book will provide a more than useful starting point for the target audience. People already working or intending to work in the area of mental health and mental illness should read it."Lawrence Whyte, Health MattersThe revised edition of this best-selling book provides a clear overview of the major aspects of the sociology of mental health and illness. As well as drawing upon a range of social theories and methods to illustrate its points, it provides the reader with information which is organized along dimensions of class, gender, race and age. The mental health professions are critically analysed and long standing debates about the role of legalism explored. Organizational aspects of psychiatry are examined as well as the growing relevance of community mental health work. The book ends with a discussion of the various ways in which psychiatric patients and their relatives can be understood in their social context.

Author Biography

David Pilgrim is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the NHS in Blackburn and Professor of Mental Health in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Liverpool. Anne Rogers is Professorial Research Fellow in the Sociology of Health Care in the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre at the University of Manchester. The authors' research interests have focused on the mental health professions, the role of mental service users and lay perspectives on mental health. Their co-authored books include Mental Health Policy in Britain and Experiencing Psychiatry (with Ron Lacey). David Pilgrim has also written Psychotherapy and Society and Clinical Psychology Observed. Anne Rogers has recently written Demanding Patients?: Analysing the Use of Primary Care (with Karen Hassell and Gerry Nicolaas). She is currently directing a programme of research on the demand for primary care services.

Table of Contents

Preface to the second edition	xiii
List of figures and tables	xvi
Perspectives on mental health and illness	1	(24)
Chapter overview	1	(1)
The perspectives outwith sociology	2	(9)
The lay view	2	(1)
Psychiatry	3	(2)
Psychoanalysis	5	(1)
Psychology	6	(1)
The statistical notion	7	(1)
The ideal notion	7	(1)
The presence of specific behaviours	8	(1)
Distorted cognitions	9	(1)
The legal framework	9	(2)
Conclusion about the perspectives outwith sociology	11	(1)
The perspectives within sociology	11	(10)
Social causation	12	(1)
Societal reaction (labelling theory)	13	(3)
Critical theory	16	(2)
Social constructivism	18	(2)
Social realism	20	(1)
Discussion	21	(2)
To conclude	23	(1)
Questions	23	(1)
For discussion	24	(1)
Further reading	24	(1)
Social class, inequalities, and mental health	25	(16)
Chapter overview	25	(1)
The general relationship between social class and health status	26	(3)
The relationship between social class and diagnosed mental illness	29	(2)
The relationship between poverty and mental health status	31	(4)
Social class and mental health professionalism	35	(1)
Lay views about mental health and social class	36	(1)
Conceptual problems of psychiatric epidemiology	37	(1)
Discussion	37	(2)
To conclude	39	(1)
Questions	39	(1)
For discussion	39	(1)
Further reading	40	(1)
Gender	41	(23)
Chapter overview	41	(1)
The over-representation of women in mental health statistics	42	(14)
Does society cause excessive female mental illness?	44	(1)
Vulnerability factors	44	(2)
Provoking agents	46	(1)
Symptom formation factors	46	(1)
Is female over-representation a measurement artefact?	47	(1)
Sex differences in help-seeking behaviour	48	(2)
Are women labelled as mentally ill more often than men?	50	(3)
The effects of labelling secondary deviance-women and minor tranquillizers	53	(3)
Men and psychiatry	56	(4)
Gender and dangerousness	56	(2)
Gender and sexuality	58	(2)
Discussion	60	(2)
To conclude	62	(1)
Questions	62	(1)
For discussion	62	(1)
Further reading	63	(1)
Race and ethnicity	64	(20)
Chapter overview	64	(1)
Theoretical presuppositions about race	65	(1)
Race and health	66	(1)
Racialized psychiatric admissions	67	(5)
What is the nature of contact with psychiatry?	72	(5)
Type of admission	72	(1)
Diagnosis	72	(1)
The labelling merely reflects actual incidence	73	(1)
Misdiagnosis	73	(1)
Racist psychiatric constructs	74	(1)
Treatment and management	75	(2)
Asian women and the somatization thesis	77	(1)
Irish people and psychiatry	78	(2)
Discussion	80	(2)
To conclude	82	(1)
Questions	82	(1)
For discussion	83	(1)
Further reading	83	(1)
Age	84	(16)
Chapter overview	84	(1)
Emotions and primary socialization	85	(2)
Childhood sexual abuse and mental health problems	87	(3)
Social competence in adulthood	90	(2)
Biological decline and depression in older people	92	(4)
Discussion	96	(2)
To conclude	98	(1)
Questions	98	(1)
For discussion	99	(1)
Further reading	99	(1)
The mental health professions	100	(18)
Chapter overview	100	(1)
Theoretical frameworks in the sociology of the professions	101	(4)
The neo-Durkheimian framework	101	(1)
The neo-Weberian framework	102	(1)
Social closure	102	(1)
Professional dominance	102	(1)
The neo-Marxian framework	103	(1)
The poststucturalist framework	104	(1)
Mental health professionals and other social actors	105	(2)
Sociology and the mental health professions	107	(7)
Eclecticism	108	(1)
Poststructuralist accounts of the psy complex	109	(3)
The neo-Weberian approach	112	(1)
Symbolic interactionism	113	(1)
The influence of the sociology of deviance	113	(1)
The influence of the sociology of knowledge	114	(1)
The influence of feminist sociology	115	(1)
Discussion	115	(1)
To conclude	116	(1)
Questions	117	(1)
For discussion	117	(1)
Further reading	117	(1)
Questions of treatment	118	(24)
Chapter overview	118	(1)
Governmentality and therapy	119	(1)
Therapeutics	119	(11)
A brief social history of psychiatric treatment	119	(2)
Criticisms of psychiatric treatment	121	(1)
Why do physical treatments predominate?	121	(2)
Minor tranquillizers	123	(1)
Major tranquillizers	124	(3)
Antidepressants	127	(1)
Psychological therapies	127	(2)
Why is there a problem of legitimacy about the effectiveness of psychiatric treatment?	129	(1)
The moral sense of `treatment'	130	(5)
Who is psychiatry's client?	130	(1)
The question of informed choice	131	(1)
Insight	131	(2)
The morality of others	133	(1)
Comprehensive and comprehensible information	133	(1)
Coercion	134	(1)
Specifiable actions	134	(1)
The social distribution of `treatment'	135	(1)
The impact of evidence-based practice on treatment	136	(2)
Disputed evidence about ECT	136	(1)
Users' views as evidence in service research	137	(1)
Mental health promotion versus treatment	138	(1)
Discussion	139	(1)
To conclude	140	(1)
Questions	140	(1)
For discussion	141	(1)
Further reading	141	(1)
The organization of psychiatry	142	(23)
Chapter overview	142	(1)
The sociology of the hospital	143	(1)
Complexity	143	(1)
Specialized division of labour	143	(1)
Structure and command system	144	(1)
The rise of the asylum	144	(3)
The crisis of the asylum	147	(3)
Responses to the crisis	150	(11)
Therapeutic communities - `humanizing' the hospital?	150	(1)
Deinstitutionalization	151	(1)
The `pharmacological revolution'	152	(1)
Economic determinism	153	(1)
A shift to acute problems	154	(1)
A shift in psychiatric discourse	154	(1)
Community care or reinstitutionalization?	155	(5)
Public health, primary care and the new technology revolution	160	(1)
Discussion	161	(2)
In conclusion	163	(1)
Questions	163	(1)
For discussion	164	(1)
Further reading	164	(1)
Psychiatry and legal control	165	(24)
Chapter overview	165	(1)
Legal versus medical control of madness	166	(1)
Mentally disordered offenders	167	(4)
Compulsory and voluntary psychiatric admissions	171	(1)
Legal aspects of compulsion	172	(8)
Compulsory admission to hospital	172	(1)
Cross-national differences in mental health services	172	(1)
Italy	172	(1)
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)	173	(1)
Japan	173	(1)
United States of America	173	(1)
Professional interests and legislation	173	(1)
Social workers	174	(1)
Psychiatric nurses	174	(1)
Discharge from hospital	175	(1)
Compulsory treatment	176	(1)
Compulsory community control	177	(3)
Dangerousness	180	(6)
Violence and mental disorder	180	(4)
Suicide	184	(1)
Impact on patients of their risky image	185	(1)
Discussion	186	(1)
In conclusion	187	(1)
Questions	188	(1)
For discussion	188	(1)
Further reading	188	(1)
Users of mental health services	189	(21)
Chapter overview	189	(1)
The diffuse concept of service use	190	(2)
The relatives of psychiatric patients	190	(2)
The user as patient	192	(4)
The disregarding by researchers of those users' views that do not coincide with the views of mental health professions	193	(1)
The notion that psychiatric patients are continually irrational and so incapable of giving a valid view	193	(1)
Patients and relatives are assumed to share the same perspective, and where they do not, the views of the former are disregarded by researchers	194	(1)
Framing patient views in terms which suit professionals	195	(1)
The user as consumer	196	(4)
Literature on psychiatric patient satisfaction and dissatisfaction	199	(1)
The user as survivor	200	(3)
The phenomenology of surviving the psychiatric system	200	(1)
Survivors as a new social movement	201	(2)
The user as provider	203	(2)
The mass media and psychiatric patients	205	(2)
The interest mediation role of the mass media	205	(1)
Negative image portrayal	206	(1)
Public psychological exploration	206	(1)
Discussion	207	(1)
In conclusion	208	(1)
Questions	208	(1)
For discussion	208	(1)
Further reading	209	(1)
References	210	(22)
Index	232