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Topic 2- Mental Illness and suicide Theory- the sociology of deviance -…
Topic 2- Mental Illness and suicide Theory- the sociology of deviance
Suicide
Durkheim studied suicide with the aim of showing that sociology is science. Using official statistics he claimed to have discovered the cause of suicide as how effectively society integrated individuals and regulated their behaviour
However, interactionalist reject Durkheim's positivist approach and his reliance on official statistics. They argue that to understand suicide we must understand its meanings for those who choose to end their lives
Douglas- Meaning of Suicide
Takes an interactionalist approach to suicide. He is critical of the use of official statistics for the same reason as interactionalists. Both are socially constructed and they tell us the activities of the people who construct them such as police and coroners rather than the real rate of crime
Eg whether a death comes to be official labelled as suicide rather than an accident or homicide depends on the interactions and negotiations between social actors such as coroner, friends or doctors
Statistics therefore tell us nothing about the meanings behind an individuals decision to commit suicide. If we want to understand, Douglas argues that we must use qualitative methods such as analysis of suicide notes or unstructured interviews with friends. This would allow us to get behind the labels coroners attach to deaths and discover true meanings.
Atkinson: Coroners common-sense knowledge
Agrees that official statistics are a record of the labels that coroners attach to deaths and its impossible to know for sure what meanings they give to their death. Atkinson focuses on the typical assumptions that coroners make when reading a verdict
He found that their idea about a typical suicide were important. Eg certain modes of death, location and circumstance.
Mental illness
Interactionalists reject official statistics on mental illness because they regard them as social constructs. They are simply a record of the activities of people who have been labelled such as schizophrenic
Crime, suicide and mental health statistics are artefacts not objective social facts
Paranoia as a self fulfilling prophecy
Interactionalists are interested in how a person comes to be labelled as mentally ill. An example of this is Lemert's study of paranoia.
Lemert notes that some individuals don't fit easily into groups. As a result of this primary devisace, others label the person as odd ad begin to exclude him. His negative response to this is secondary deviance which gives him further reason to exculde him
His reaction justifies their fears of his mental health and this may lead to psychiatric intervention resulting in him being labelled. The mental patient then becomes his master status .
Rosenhan's experiment: Researchers had themselves admitted to a number of hospitals claiming to be hearing voices. They were diagnosed with schizophrenia which became their master status. Despite acting normally they were treated as mentally ill
Institutionalisation
Goffman's study shows some of the possible effects of being admitted to a total institution such as a psychiatric hospital. On admission the inmate undergoes a mortification of self- old identity is symbolically killed off and replace by new one.
This is achieved by various degradation rituals such as confiscation of belongings. He compared this to prisons and boarding schools.
Goffman also shows that while some inmates become institutionalised , internalising their new identity and enable to re adjust to outside world other may resist and not adjust to this