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Medical Sociology and Its Relationship to Other Disciplines: The Case of Mental Health and the Ambivalent Relationship Between Sociology and Psychiatry

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Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness, and Healing

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Abstract

Within the subfield of the sociology of health and illness, mental health is a well-established and major area of sociological inquiry and interest. This prominent interest has necessarily brought sociologists into contact with other disciplines concerned with research and practice in the area of mental illness. The most notable of these has been the discipline of psychiatry. As Norman Elias noted nearly 40 years ago, this relationship necessarily involves difference and tensions because whilst sociology and psychiatry are both dealing with human behaviour, their explanatory frameworks are different and each needs to protect their professional and theoretical autonomy (Elias 1969).

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Notes

  1. 1.

     Sociology, he points out, might focus on social factors of anomie and status differentials with psychiatry even at the social end referring more to personality traits and sibling rivalries.

  2. 2.

     The lineage of the symbolic interactionist wing of the Chicago School of sociology has ensured a strong emphasis on deviancy theory (Cooley 1902, Mead 1934, Goffman 1961, Becker 1963, Lemert 1967, Scheff 1966).

  3. 3.

     The true nature of mental health problems, according to the campaign, is contrasted with the competing and flawed views held by the general public. An explicit intention discussed under the heading of that name is to ‘close the gap’ between the psychiatric and lay perspectives and an explicit emphasis on the need for the profession to educate the public to accept a professional conception of mental health problems. This is pro-active attempt at what De Swaan (1990) calls ‘protoprofessionalization’. While the benefits to the profession of this opportunity to promote its preferred view of reality about mental health are afforded considerable space, it is not clear what this has to do with stigma or its reversal.

  4. 4.

     For example a British Journal of Psychiatry article stated that: we are reminded by Lewis and Lieberman (pp. 161–163) that the Orwellian chant of ‘atypical antipsychotics good, typical antipsychotics bad’ is indeed the vacant refrain of sheep-like adherents to an outdated chimera of progress.

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  1. University of Manchester, 5th Floor Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M139, PL, England

    Anne Rogers

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  1. Anne Rogers
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  2. David Pilgrim
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Research, Indiana University, E. Third Street 1022, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, USA

    Bernice A. Pescosolido

  2. Institute of Social Research, Indiana University, E. Third Street 1022, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, USA

    Jack K. Martin

  3. Institute of Social Research, Indiana University, E. Third Street 1022, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, USA

    Jane D. McLeod

  4. , National Primary Care Research and Devel, The University of Manchester, Oxford Street, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom

    Anne Rogers

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Rogers, A., Pilgrim, D. (2011). Medical Sociology and Its Relationship to Other Disciplines: The Case of Mental Health and the Ambivalent Relationship Between Sociology and Psychiatry. In: Pescosolido, B., Martin, J., McLeod, J., Rogers, A. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness, and Healing. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7261-3_2

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