SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES COLLEGE, AALO DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, NATIONAL WEBINAR ON “MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL- BEING” Sociological Perspectives on Mental Health and Illness

1. SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES COLLEGE, AALO
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY,
NATIONAL WEBINAR
ON
“MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL- BEING”
Sociological Perspectives on
Mental Health and Illness
Dr. Bikash Bage
Dept. of Sociology
Rajiv Gandhi University
Ronohills, Doimukh 791112

2. PERSPECTIVES OF MENTAL HEALTH DEFINITION
 a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a
point of view.
 view of or view regarding mental health among the
people/society.
 Social stigma is structural in society and can create barriers for
persons with a mental/ behavioral disorder.
 men·tal health: noun: mental health a person’s condition with
regard to their psychological and emotional well-being."all this
pressure seems to be affecting his mental health

3.  People seem to simultaneously hold multiple and
contradictory illness beliefs and seek help from
diverse sources of cure and healing.
 Explanatory models do not predict outcomes of
illness, change over time, and are dependent on the
interaction between the trajectory of individual's
illness and the socio-cultural milieu.
 Illness narratives contextualize the patient, describe
the patient's reality and his/her ways of coping, and
attempt to make sense of illness experiences, control
them, and improve quality of life.

4. On the other hand,
 diversity of beliefs among psychiatrists, family
physicians, and public health specialists is dependent
on their disciplinary perspectives.
 Nevertheless, the variability within psychiatric
syndromes and the inability to predict individual
trajectories of illness support cultural beliefs about
uncertainties of life.
 These are identified by cultures through idioms and
metaphors and labeled as luck, chance, karma, fate,
punishment by God, evil spirits, black magic, disease
and so on.

5. STIGMA, DISCRIMINATION, AND MENTAL HEALTH
Definition of stigma:
 Mental illness stigma is defined as the “devaluing, disgracing, and
disfavoring by the general public of individuals with mental illnesses”.
 Stigma often leads to discrimination, or the inequitable treatment of
individuals and the denial of the “rights and responsibilities that accompany
full citizenship”.
 Stigmatization can cause individual discrimination, which occurs when a
stigmatized person is directly denied a resource (e.g. access to housing or a
job), and structural discrimination, which describes disadvantages
stigmatized people experience.
Stigma is a belief held by society in which persons with the stigmatized
condition are less equal or are part of an inferior group.
Stigma is embedded in the social framework to create inferiority.
This belief system may result in unequal access to treatment services or the
creation of policies that disproportionately and differentially affect.

6.  In addition, stigma can prevent mentally ill
individuals from seeking treatment, adhering to
treatment regimens, finding employment, and living
successfully in community settings.
 In 2001, WHO identified stigma & discrimination
towards mentally ill individuals as “the single most
important barrier to overcome in the community”,
 WHO’s Mental Health Global Action Programme
(mhGAP) cited advocacy against stigma &
discrimination as one of its core strategies for
improving the state of global mental health.

7. CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON MENTAL ILLNESS
 Attitudes toward mental illness vary among individuals,
families, ethnicities, cultures, countries.
 Cultural and religious teachings often influence beliefs
about the origins and nature of mental illness, and shape
attitudes towards the mentally ill.
 In addition to influencing whether mentally ill individuals
experience social stigma, beliefs about mental illness can
affect patients’ readiness and willingness to seek and
adhere to treatment.
 Therefore, understanding individual & cultural beliefs
about mental illness is essential for implementation of
effective approaches to mental health care although each
individual’s experience with mental illness is unique.

8. RESEARCH REVIEW:
 A review of ethno-cultural beliefs and mental illness
stigma by Abdullah et al. (2011) highlights the wide
range of cultural beliefs surrounding mental health.
eg. while some American Indian tribes do not
stigmatize mental illness, others stigmatize only
some mental illnesses, and other tribes stigmatize all
mental illnesses.
In Asia, where many cultures value “conformity to
norms, emotional self-control, [and] family
recognition through achievement”, mental illnesses
are often stigmatized and seen as a source of shame.

9. What is Mental Health?
“Mental health issues affect all ages, genders, cultures, educational and income levels. The
economic and societal impact of mental illness touches everyone” – A person’s condition with
regard to their psychological and emotional well being.
What is mentally unhealthy?
❖ Becoming overwhelmed by emotions
❖ Not feeling good about themselves
❖ Not being comfortable around other people
❖ Not being able to adjust to life’s trials and tribulations
❖ Alterations in thinking, mood or behavior
❖ Impaired functioning over an extended period of time.
❖ disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior,
 Most mental illnesses are chronic, in other words, life-long. However, they are not always active.
 With treatment and support, the symptoms of mental illness are treatable.
Social Problem?
STIGMA: a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. “the
stigma of mental disorder” Reputation is everything.
What is being done? Inclusive Support, Information, Stop Stigma, Listen, Discuss, Recovery
 “I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I’m still surviving it, but
bring it on.” - Carrie Fisher
 It is important as a society to try to reach towards a world where mental health is given the respect
and attention that it needs.

10. Types of Mental Illnesses
• Anxiety Disorders
• Concurrent Disorders & Dual Diagnosis
• Dementia
• Eating Disorders
• Mood Disorders
• Personality Disorders
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD)
• Schizophrenia

11. SOCIAL EPIDEMIOLOGY OF HEALTH MENTAL ILLNESS
 Distinct sociological perspective within field of psychiatry was established with series of
psychiatric epidemiological studies carried out by American investigators in 1930‘.
Using the epidemiological model these studies sought to clarify the socio-environmental
conditions and psychological impairment.
 Broad social variables like class, sex, race, age, and ecological situation were studied in an
attempt to map out those factors that might be related to onset of mental disorder.
 Sociological Approaches
• Health and illness is not just natural or biological it is physical and mental
• Health and illnesses are shaped, distributed and understood in relation to social factors.
Relationship between social structures (class, gender, ethnicity etc) and health
• Biological/genetic factors are shaped by the social circumstances. Poverty creates illness
rather than sick people become poor. Unhealthy ‘lifestyles’ are shaped by economic and
social circumstances
• Medical knowledge is not just ‘scientific facts’. It develops in relation to wider society
• The power relationship between health professionals and ‘patients’ impacts on individuals
health
 The ‘sick role’
• Earliest concepts in medical sociology was Parson’s idea of the ‘sick role’.
• Being sick is not just a biological condition but also a social role. It has both rights and
duties
The ‘sick role’• Rights and Duties: – You can be excused normal duties – You are not
responsible for your ‘deviance’ – You must want and try to get well – You must seek and
accept professional help

12. Sociological Theories
Structural Functionalism:
• Recognizing mental illness means upholding values of
conforming behaviour Symbolic Internationalism:
• People with mental illness are treated irresponsibly and
are denied access to normal activities
• People get socialized into mental patient culture and
therefore take on an identity of a mental patient
Conflict Theory:
 Those who have the least resources in society are more
likely to have a mental illness
 People who have more resources are properly cared for
while those who are underprivileged are less likely to
receive proper treatment

13.  With Technology and Society and Mental health, I believe the
conflict theory to be best fitting. More specifically;
• Positivism
• Antipositivism:
With media and the whole “like” system it brings down how we feel
about our selves, more likes is better looking (same with more
friends) the more we have the better we feel with ourselves.
• Social constructionism
• Interactionism:
With technology, we no longer need to see someone to know how
their day was, instead we can text them and find out what's new
rather than have face to face conversation with them (that brings up
more topics on technology and mental health)
We can hide emotions from text, making it harder to interact with
people feelings and they can hide signs of sadness etc.
Technology changes how we act in public and online.

14. Sociological approach: Mental health & illness as aspects of social circumstances.
One type of sociological study examines:
social conditions, such as -tive life events, ongoing stressful circumstances, demanding social roles,
levels of social support, strength of cultural systems of meaning, that affect levels of mental health
& illness.
Another type of study focuses on how social & cultural influences shape the definitions & responses to
mental health problems.
Recent trends –medicalization & growing no. of conditions, increased use of prescription drugs to deal
with mental health problems, and greater willingness to identify emotional suffering as mental
illnesses that require professional help.
These are transforming how modern societies deal with psychological problems. The sociological study
of mental health & illness is both distinct & complementary to more individualistic psychological
and biological approaches.
What would be an eg. of difference between how a sociologist and a psychiatrist might view someone's
mental health problems?
What are the advantages/ disadvantages of each approach?
Some people think that using prescription drugs for mental health problems is helpful to
responding to suffering, whereas others emphasize dangers involved in growing rates of
prescription drug use.
Which view do you think is best supported?

15. Social Responses to Mental Disorder
 Another sociological research examines how people themselves, those around them, and their societies define and
respond to psychological problems.
Social influences profoundly affect how people and groups react to mental health troubles.
 Images of mental illness have undergone radical changes in recent decades. These conceptions also carried agreat
deal of stigma so that people would resist defining themselves as mentally ill and seeking mental health treatment.
Because only the most severe and disruptive conditions would come to the attention of mental health professionals,
treatment often occurred in locked wards of inpatient mental hospitals.
 Change occurred in recent time how people define, seek help for, and treat psychological and behavioral problems.
In particular, a dramatic upsurge in the medicalization of social life occurred in the 1990s and 2000s.
Medicalization: conditions that previously had been defined as nonmedical difficulties are now seen as medical
problems to be treated through medical techniques . Troubles that in the past were considered as spiritual, moral,
or behavioral harms that were handled through prayer, counseling, or punishment or were simply tolerated are now
defined as diseases and addressed through biomedical treatments. In the field of mental health, medicalization has
had these effects: people are more willing to seek professional help for their emotional problems, social definitions
emphasize how mental troubles are signs of diseases, and treatments primarily involve biomedical interventions,
especially drugs.
 The fundamental categories of mental illness themselves have undergone notable changes in recent years. For
example, distressing and disruptive but not necessarily disordered childhood behaviors are increasingly being
labeled as mental illnesses. Children have always behaved in ways that annoy and frustrate their parents and
disturb their teachers. Only recently, however, have these behaviors been considered to be mental disorders that
must be treated with medications.
 The rise in rates of bipolar (or manic-depressive) disorder in youth provides another dramatic instance of a new
childhood mental disorder. This disorder was traditionally thought to arise in mid-life and until recently was
unknown among youth. The common denominator among children treated for this condition seems to be that their
behavior is extremely disturbing to adults, usually their parents or teachers. The rising rates of the pediatric bipolar
diagnosis and resulting prescriptions for powerful drugs seem more due to their usefulness for pacifying disruptive
behavior than to the discovery of a previously unknown disease.

16.  Among adults: major depressive disorder (MDD) most common diagnosis in psychiatric treatment and one of the
most common conditions . low mood, diminished pleasure, sleep and appetite difficulties, fatigue, and lack of
concentration that persist for a 2-week. In the past, the symptoms of MDD have been viewed as natural responses
to serious loss such as breakup of marriage or a long-term relationship, unexpected loss of a valued job, or the
discovery that an intimate has a life-threatening illness.
The expansion of medicalization has led to define sadness as a depressive mental disorder and to treat it with
medications
 Social phobia provides another eg. of medicalization. Conditions of extreme anxiety over situations in which people
are exposed to scrutiny of others, speaking in public, performance evaluated, or attend social events that involve
interacting with strangers. One of eight people, has had a social phobia at some point in their lives.
 It is not just conceptions of what mental disorders are that have changed in recent years. People are now far more
willing to seek mental health treatment . The treatment of depression illustrates this change. Although the
willingness to seek professional help for mental health problems such as depression has increased, a number of
social characteristics are associated with defining oneself as in need of mental health treatment.
 The places of mental health treatment have also changed , the rates of inpatient treatment in mental hospitals have
plunged, and few mentally ill people now enter these institutions. The vast majority of people treated in the mental
health system now go to outpatient facilities in the community or see general physicians for their emotional
problems.
 Several factors account for rising rates of professional treatment. The earlier emphasis of cultural conceptions of
mental illness on the most serious and stigmatizing conditions has shifted toward focus on a broad range of
emotional and psychosocial problems. Younger birth cohorts, in particular, have been socialized to a therapeutic
culture that emphasizes using mental health services and, especially, taking psychotropic medications to ease
suffering. Various mental illnesses are common topics in television shows, movies, and popular magazines. Direct-
to-consumer (DTC) advertisements of medications that treat psychological problems are another prominent reason
for rising rates of treatment.

17.  The drug industry has had an especially important influence on the growth and evolution of mental health
treatment. Increase in prescriptions for antidepressant medications. The use of antidepressants, including
fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), venlafaxine (Effexor), and fluvoxamine (Luvox), nearly
tripled . A sharp drop in the use of psychotherapies – treatments of emotional disorders that rely on talk therapies
– has accompanied the growing reliance on drugs.
 On the one hand, changes in the social response to mental health conditions have meant that more people are
getting professional help for their psychological problems. The stigma associated with seeking help for emotional
problems and mental illness has declined. However, people who suffer from serious types of mental disorders such
as schizophrenia remain highly stigmatized. The availability of effective medications is also partly responsible for
why far fewer people enter mental hospitals and far more live in the community than in past decades. Psychotropic
drugs allow many people to lead brighter lives and accomplish more than they would if they were not taking
medications for their problems.
 On the other hand, critics have emphasized how a no. of problems are due to rising use of drug therapies . Growing
medicalization has led to the assumption that drugs are the treatment of choice for numerous psychosocial
problems. Prescribing a pill can communicate the message that issues such as unfulfilling marriages, poor
parenting, and inadequate finances are easily remedied through pharmaceuticals. Current health policy might be
overly reliant on using medical remedies for concerns that often can be addressed through alternative social
policies. For eg., enhancing parenting skills, investing in childhood development programs and child care, and
creating more stimulating classroom experiences might be more effective responses to childhood behavioral
problems than pharmaceutical treatments. It is possible that promoting healthy lifestyles and reducing
socioeconomic inequality, workplace pressures, and family demands could enhance mental health to a greater
extent than telling people they have a disease and prescribing pills to remedy their conditions.
 Another problem is that the benefits of medicalization are often overstated. Although these drugs do help control
mental illnesses, their effectiveness for less severe conditions does not exceed that of place treatments. If the
benefits of drugs have been exaggerated, their risks including negative side effects such as diminished sexual desire,
increased somatic symptoms, and sleep problems, withdrawal problems from ceasing use, and heightened suicidal
potential might be underestimated.
 An additional issue is that little is known about the impact of long-term use of psychotropic medications, an
especially important concern for young adults who begin using them during early stages of their life cycle. Whatever
the exact balance is between the benefits and risks of the medicalized response to emotional problems, it is
undoubtedly one of the most important recent trends in the field of the sociology of mental health and illness.

18. Conclusion
 Sociological research about mental health and illness shows how the emergence of
psychological well-being and distress are consequences of basic aspects of social
organization.
 Dimensions of social life including integration, stratification, and cultural systems of
meanings shape resulting rates of emotional problems. Even such extreme behaviors
as suicide can often result from the way people are attached to social institutions
rather than from the irrational behavior of abnormal individuals.
From a sociological point of view, regular features of social life rather than abnormal
processes within individuals explain how much distress will emerge among people
living in any given time and place.
 The response to mental problems is also rooted in essential dimensions of social life.
Social processes influence how people classify what kinds of problems they have, what
sort of remedies they seek, and what kind of resources are available to treat them.
Cultural conceptions of what it means to be emotionally healthy or disturbed have
radically altered in recent decades. A number of particular social groups including
pharmaceutical companies, the mental health professions, the media, and
governmental bodies encourage people to medicalize their emotional suffering. The
result is that notions of mental illness are far broader than in the past, allowing many
more people to view themselves as having emotional problems that require
professional treatment.
 Rooting the emergence and response to psychological problems in social practices
rather than within individuals might seem to be counterintuitive. Most people think
that their emotions are profoundly individual processes that are uniquely their own.
Yet, the kinds of societies we live in and the sorts of cultural beliefs that we share
shape the seemingly most innermost aspects of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

19.  How does Technology Affect Us
 According to Daily Mail, The average person spends 8 hours and 41
minutes on electronic devices 4/10 smartphone users check their
phone in the night if it wakes them More people check emails in
the morning than they do eat breakfast
 Health Risk:
 This leads to lack of sleep (causing stress, increased risk of heart
disease and high blood pressure) Not healthy for body (blue light
messes up natural rhythms in body) Smartphones may lead to
stess Acne caused by cellphones “Blackberry thumb”
Radiation
 How to Balance the two
 Technology is awesome, but you need to balance the two to maintain
a healthy lifestyle. Turn your phone off at night, enjoy the much
needed time off from it Enjoy the outdoors, go on walks, go to
coffee with your friends, enjoy the smaller things in life! We now
consume media for more hours than we sleep.

20. Equity and Inclusive Mental Health
 A Disease of the mind is like a disease of physical body
 Solving the Problem
• Educating others about the importance of mental illness
• Eradicating the taboo aspect of getting mental assistance
 Help the Silent Mental illness is still quite taboo in our
society
• It is considered normal to attend a therapist or doctor for
a physical illness but embarrassing and usually secretive
for mental illness
• Mental illness needs to have a different light so that
people can get the help that they need
 You don’t have to be alone; let someone help you.

21.  Human beings have an innate desire to communicate and share life experiences.
 Mutually withhold from interacting through fear of being rejected or misunderstood.
 Specific spaces must be created which provide individuals the necessary pretext to engage in
meaningful discussion with each other.
 Mental or Emotional Health - is the ability to manage your emotions and feelings. GAIN MORE
FRIENDS SHOW GOOD VALUES, RESPECT, LOVE AND CARE
 Accept suggestions for improvement
 Have the ability to have fun and recreation
 Show love, thoughtfulness, respect, and care for others.
 Have a high level of self-esteem and self-confidence
 Have the ability to learn
 Have a happy relationship with the family and other people
 Can handle problems
 Free from worries and sadness
 Have the ability to establish strong and happy relationships
 Take care of your Physical Health
 It’s no secret that mental health is routinely treated differently than physical health, but sometimes
it’s difficult to understand how or why this affects us. This disparity can take many shapes and
forms, ranging from negative societal perceptions to discrimination in health coverage for mental
health. Consequently, this unequal treatment of mental and physical illnesses leads to unequal
results.
 If we don’t recognize mental illnesses as physical health issues, then we will never get people the
treatment that they need. Mental health is just as important as physical health.