Sociocultural and social-psychological factors affecting social responses to mental disorder.

TLDR: Social response to the manifestations of mental disorder rests upon the interpretation of partictuflar behaviors in varied social contexts, upon the general stereotypes and criteria used as bases for labeling, and upon the beliefs that exist with reference to the categories employed.

Abstract: MENTAL1 disorder is manifest in thoLght processes and in behavior. Such behavior may be constricted or extravagant, self-demeaning or flagrantly offensive, but it must deviate from social norms or situational proprieties in order to be labeled as mental disorder. Once behavior is so labeled, responses to it may reflect the label as much as the behavior. But before labeling takes place, whatever set of criteria may be entailed, we do not know whether or not the behaviors in question are to be regarded as manifestations of' mental disorder. Social response to the manifestations of mental disorder rests, then, upon the interpretation of' particuLlar behaviors in varied social contexts, upon the general stereotypes and criteria used as bases for labeling, and upon the beliefs that exist with reference to the categories employed. Thei'e are many facets to social response to mental disorder. One that has received a good deal of attention pertains to the labeling of partictuflar behaviors as instances of' mental disor'der and to the consequences of such labeling. Another' pertains to the treatment accoi'ded to people who have been designated as having a mental disorder-the influence of' such labeling upon their rights and privileges and upon their conceptions of themselves. Still another' hicet of'the pi'oblem relates to the institutional For'ms and the social processes that are elaborated as modes f'or dealing with mental disoi'dei' in ai given society.