Blackwell Reference Online

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Social constructionist studies of mental illness examine how cultural conceptions of mental illness arise, are applied, and change. They differ from traditional views of mental illness because they conceive of symptoms as cultural definitions rather than as properties of individuals. Such studies address questions of how conceptions of mental illness emerge in particular social circumstances, which groups have the power to enforce definitions of normality and abnormality and apply these definitions to individuals, and what social and cultural forces are responsible for why these conceptions change. The first sociological statement of the constructionist perspective is found in Émile Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method (1966 [1895]) . In this work Durkheim challenged conventional conceptions of deviant behavior by viewing deviant acts (and, by implication, mental illness) as violations of social rules as opposed to individual actions. For Durkheim, definitions of deviance stem from the value systems of collectivities that define and apply rules of what behaviors are appropriate or inappropriate. His analysis moved the study of deviance away from individual behavior toward cultural definitions that define deviance. The anthropologist Ruth Benedict's 1934 paper “Anthropology and the Abnormal” was an especially influential early social constructionist study of mental illness. ... log in or subscribe to read full text