Failure of a moral enterprise: Attitude of the public toward mental illness.

Abstract

A critical analysis of published reports on the public's attitudes toward mental illness and toward deviant conduct is presented. The mental health movement fits the defining criteria for a moral crusade, motivated and supported by moral entrepreneurs. The reported data indicate that the mental illness paradigm, as a formula for understanding and controlling deviant conduct, has not been widely accepted by the public. The central objective of the mental health movement has been to influence the general public to regard mental illness with the same nonrejecting valuations as somatic illness. The present analysis of social survey reports and other data points to the conclusion that the public tends to declare negative (rejecting) valuations on persons diagnosed as mentally ill, On the other hand, the public tends to be more tolerant of deviant conduct when it is not described with mental illness labels. Implications for social policy are discussed.

Psychiatric Labelling, Sex Role Stereotypes and Beliefs About the Mentally Ill

“…abl~in (1972), in her review of the literature on opinions about mental illness, points out that definitions of deviant behaviour and the assignment of labels to such behaviour strongly influence attitudes toward those regarded as deviant. Various authors have argued that the label of mental illness is itself stigmatising (Farina & Ring, 1965;Farina et al 1971), and consequently that the public tends to be more tolerant of deviant conduct when it is not described using &dquo;mental illness&dquo; terms (Sarbin & Mancuso, 1970). Scheff (1963; was the first to build on earlier work of Lemert (1951), Erikson (1957), Goffman (1961; and Becker (1963) by applying the labelling theory of deviance to the problem of mental illness, thereby attempting to develop a social system model of mental disorder in contrast to the traditional psychiatric disease model.…”

Cultural Psychiatry: Research Strategies and Future Directions

“…Read and Harré [71] showed that biomedical explanations produce negative attitudes towards people with mental disorders. The very lack of accountability accompanying the medical model means that suffers may be perceived as dangerous and unpredictable [72]. In an experimental setting, when biological causes of mental illness are emphasized people may endorse harsher, more rejecting attitudes [73].…”

Dimensions of Students' Behavior Disorders: An Alternative to Medical Model Classification Practices

“…These include recommending that current systems be totally abolished (Sarbin & Mancuso, 1970), substantially altered in form and content (Gardner, 1977), or continually refined (Spitzer, Endicott, Cohen, & Fleiss, 1974). It is apparent that the field of behavioral disorders may not be able to pursue vigorous service and research efforts without a common system of nomenclature (Salvia & Seibel, 1983).…”