The social construction of mental illness

This chapter outlines the origins of the social constructionist approach to mental illness from the 1960s onwards. It shows that mental illness is socially constructed in the sense of being the successful labelling of someone, or some condition, as mentally ill. The social construction of mental illness can be demonstrated in the institutional attempts by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to consolidate a claim to be a rigorous part of the medical profession. The rise and fall of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and Asperger's disorder are good examples of these processes of the social construction of mental illness. Contemporary accounts of the social construction of mental illness by sociologists link the process of constructing, producing and distributing mental illness labels to specific power relationships in society. Women are generally diagnosed as 'mad' more than men while, in contrast, men are more likely to be labelled as 'bad'.