Cultural consensus and definition of mental illness

Abstract

Contained in both Parsons' [1, 2] formulation of illness role theory and Scheffs [3, 4] labeling perspective is the assumption that cultural definitions of mental illness are uniform throughout the community. Furthermore, both theorists assert that individuals identified as mentally ill internalize community definitions of their impairment whether positive or negative. Analysis of data of a sample of mental patients and the public lends some support to illness role theory while refuting Scheffs labeling perspective. There is community wide consensus in the moral (wrongness) evaluation of behaviors and feelings which are indicative of mental illness. Public and patient alike judge their own actions as less wrong than the actions of others. Contrary to Scheff [3, 4] the general public judges the actions, feelings and behaviors of the mentally ill as neither wrong nor right. With several exceptions, subgroups of the general public held similar definitions of the implications of traits of mental illness for the impairment of role performance. The highly educated, and patients with high symptom levels indicated their role performance was significantly impaired by mental illness. The results of this research call for labeling theorists to distinguish status as a cause from status as a cue for labeling certain types of actions and feelings as indications of mental illness.