Life experiences and the decision to become a mental patient.

Abstract

This research focuses upon life events influencing the decision to adopt or reject the mental patient role. Studied were 30 mental health center patients who defined themselves as mentally ill and aggressively sought treatment. These were contrasted with 21 persons who consistently denied that they were mentally disordered, and persistently resisted the treatment forced upon them. Patients in both groups had been exposed to the mental health system on the average of 7 years each. Findings showed that those identifying with the mental patient role, in contrast to those resisting it, were more likely to have received treatment in adolescence, to occupy a special sibling position in the family, to have suffered parental loss in childhood, and to have had a parent defined as mentally ill or inebriate. These results were interpreted to indicate that the decision to accept the role of mental patient occurs in the context of a crisis of personal identity to which adolescents are particularly vulnerable. The patient-candidate's fears of being mentally unbalanced are realistically affirmed by knowledge that his parent was also regarded as mentally unsound, and he has the opportunity to learn the appropriate patient role from other family members. In addition, the patient who identifies with the mental health system may be incorporating it as a love object to replace parental loss. Those resisting the patient role, in constrast, seem already to have had developed the identity of an oppressed group, and appeared to regard coercion into the mental health system as a realistic confirmation of their sense of victimization. There did not appear to be any advantages to accepting or rejecting the patient role with regard to socially acceptable conduct.