Social Constructions of Mental Illness: A Review

Abstract

Social representations of certain identifiable images of mental illness that are adopted in examining the sanity of individuals are critical to understanding madness or mental illness as a concept. Identifiable images of the insane (Gilman 1988) that describe them as violent, dangerous, vagrant, unkempt, bizarre, childlike and blameworthy (Wahl 1992; Philo et al. 1996; Aina 2004; Knifton and Quinn 2008) characters have influenced standards adopted in the evaluation of individuals as sufferers of madness, an extension of which permits laymen and specialists to see the signs of danger and illness everywhere (Foucault 1965), particularly in ways that are influenced by socio-cultural practices. These socio-cultural practices, as it pertains to mental illness, vary in perception and practice across various cultures in different parts of the continent. In some cultural context, Africa specifically, mental illness is explained from views that are predominantly magical or supernatural, but in the western culture, violence and aggression are themes that are constantly evoked in mediated representations of mental illness. The media is also an important social structure that has been reported to reinforce existing social-cultural beliefs about mental illness. The differences and diversity in the way mental illness is understood across cultures are crucial to understanding the relativity and realism in social constructions of mental illness. This is so because social constructionism is concerned with putting in proper context which agency- human or social- is responsible for formulating and sustaining popularly held views about mental illness. Thus, this review analysed ways the media as an important social structure formulate or reinforce socially held views on manifestations of stigma and explanations of causes and treatments of mental illness. Also, this review made an attempt to fuel on-going debate about social constructionism, by explaining ways the individual creates or recreates personal views about mental illness while using social structures like the media and religion for these purposes. This review adopted social constructionism as explained by Burr (1998) and Berger and Luckmann (1966) to further explain the importance of magic and supernaturalism in the conceptualisation of mental illness in African and Asian societies, and the implication of these beliefs in the sustenance of psychiatry.