Mental Illness and Suicide: The Sociology of Deviance

Question 1

Describe Douglas’ study on the meaning of suicide

Answer 1

• Douglas argues official suicide statistics are socially constructed and tell us about the activities of the people who construct them (coroners)
• e.g. whether a death is labelled as suicide depends on the interactions and negotiations between social actors. (coroner, relatives, doctors etc)
• Statistics don’t tell us about an individual’s decision to commit suicide. To understand their meanings, Douglas argues we should use qualitative methods (suicide notes). This allows us to ‘get behind’ the labels coroners attach to deaths and discover true meanings

Question 2

Describe Atkinson’s study on suicide

Answer 2

• Atkinson agrees that official statistics are s record of the labels coroners attach to deaths. He argues the that it’s impossible to know for sure what meanings the dead gave to their deaths
• He then focuses on the assumptions that coroners make when reaching their verdicts. He found their ideas about a ‘typical suicide’ were important; certain modes of death (hanging), location and circumstances of the death, and life history were seen as typical of suicides

Question 3

How are official statistics on mental illness socially constructed?

Answer 3

They are simply a record of the activities of those such as psychiatrists with the power to attach labels such as ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘paranoid’ to others

Question 4

Describe Lemert’s study of paranoia

Answer 4

• Lemert notes that some individuals don’t fit easily into groups (primary deviance), others then label the person as odd and being to exclude them.
• The individual’s response to this is the beginning of their secondary deviance and it gives the family, friends (social audience) further reason to exclude them.
• This may have the effect of confirming the individual’s suspicions that people are conspiring against them which then confirms the audience’s fear of the persons mental health. This may lead to a psychiatric intervention, resulting in the individual being officially labelling as suffering from paranoia.

Question 5

Describe Rosenhan’s ‘pseudo-patient’ study

Answer 5

• Researchers has themselves admitted to different hospitals claiming to have been ‘hearing voices’. They were diagnosed as a schizophrenic and this became their master status.
• Despite acting normally, they were treated by staff as mentally ill.

Question 6

Describe Goffman’s study ‘Asylums’ on the possible effects of being admitted to a ‘total institution’

Answer 6

• On admission, the inmate undergoes a ‘mortification of the self’ where their old identity is symbolically ‘killed off’ and replaced by a new inmate. This is achieved by various ‘degradation rituals’, such as confiscation of personal effects.
• Goffman shows that while some inmate become institutionalised, internalising their new identity and unable to re-adjust to the outside world, others adopt various forms of resistance

Question 7

Describe criticisms of labelling theoy

Answer 7

• It tends to be deterministic, implying that once someone is labelled, a deviant career is inevitable
• It implies that without labelling, deviance wouldn’t exist. This leads to the strange conclusion that someone who commits a crime but is not labelled hasn’t deviated. It also implies that deviants are unaware that they’re deviant until labelled, but most are well aware that they’re going against social norms
• It recognises the role of power in creating deviance, but fails to analyse the source of this power. So it focuses on ‘middle range officials’ (policemen) who apply the labels, rather than on the capitalist class, Marxists argue, who make the rules in the first place. It also fails to explain the origin of the labels or why they’re applied to certain groups, such as the WC.