Mental Health & Illness

November 4, 2021.

SOC 224
Dr. Marta-Marika Urbanik
What kinds of things come to
mind when people think of
mental disorders?
 Mental Disorders

Experience of the How people

disorder perceive and treat
those with mental
illnesses
 Mental Disorders

“Alterations in thinking,
mood or behaviour
associated with significant
distress and impaired
functioning”

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental

Disorders) explains and diagnoses mental disorders
 Prevalence
Canada:
20% of adults have a mental disorder
80% of adults know someone with a mental disorder
50% will experience a mental disorder by 40, 65-70% by age
90
Worldwide
450 million people at any given time
One-third of all disabilities

Mental illness can affect anyone

 Mental Health Commission of
Canada, 2013

#1: Mood and Anxiety Disorders

11.7% of the population

#2: Substance Abuse Disorders

5.9% of the population

#3: Cognitive Impairment and Dementia

2.2% of the population
 Variations in Mental Illness
Significant variation in prevalence/type of mental
illness across social groups
 Reveals how social factors can contribute to mental
disorders

Environmental
Individual
Economic Attributes

Mental Illness
Social

Cultural
Political
Rates of Mental Disorder:
Gender
Equal overall rates for women and men

Different types of mental illness

 Men: antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse
disorder, conduct disorder
 Women: depression, anxiety (Common Mental Disorders)
Sociocultural factors
 Rates of Mental Disorder:
Socioeconomic Status

Higher rates among lower socioeconomic status groups

Social causation hypothesis: More life stresses and fewer

resources characterize the lives of lower class, contributing to
the emergence of mental disorders

Social selection hypothesis: People with mental disorders fall

into lower socioeconomic strata because of difficulties of daily
functioning
Rates of Mental Disorder:
Age

Higher rates in adolescents/young

adults
Biological factors
Social stresses
Psychological factors
Identity formation
Difficult transition period
Making “adult” choices

University Pressures…
 Variations in Risk to Youth
Impoverished youth

LBGTQ2+

Fleeing conflict/trauma+ refugees

Indigenous youth
Considerable variation in risk
90% of Indigenous suicides—10% of communities
Attawapiskat
 National College Health
Assessment –Alberta, 2016
Over the past 12 months:

64% overwhelming anxiety

57.5 % felt hopeless 13.1 % seriously considered

suicide
Over 90% felt overwhelmed

65 % felt very lonely 2.1 % attempted suicide

Over 42 % felt so depressed it 18.9 % : diagnosed or treated by a

was difficult to function. professional for anxiety

15.4 % for depression

Social Control of Mental Illness

Social control measures

can have both negative
and positive outcomes
Primary measures of
social control:
Stigmatization
Medicalization
 Stigmatization
“Sort of like having ‘crazy bitch’ stamped across my forehead
and everybody treats you differently.” (p. 227)
Negative attitudes have not improved
 Even among mental health professionals

Discrimination in employment, housing, health care

Negative consequences of stigmatization

 Personal experiences are not necessary for negative consequences:
mere knowledge—decreases self esteem, increases feelings of
demoralization
 Mere awareness of the stigmatization of mental illness: self-
stigma
 Internalization of label “mentally ill”
 Less likely to seek or adhere to treatment
 Medicalization
Stigmatization of mental illness in society  lack of
funding
Treatment of mental illness has changed:
 Religious rituals (e.g., exorcisms)
 Family care
 “Madhouses”: society needs to feel safe
 “Asylums”: medicalization began
trained to conform to society’s norms
 Psychiatric care
Barbaric practices
Total Institutions
Erving Goffman
“A total institution may be defined as a place of
residence and work where a large number of like-situated
individuals, cut off from the wider society for an
appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed,
formally administered round of life” (Goffman, 1961: xxiii)

Exercise total control over their inmates

Punish, brainwash, re-socialize uncooperative citizens

All aspects of life, conducted in the same place and under

the same single authority
Deinstitutionalization
Deinstitutionalization began in the 1960s

Treatment within communities rather than

institutions
Has improved the lives of many people
 Quality of life
 Improved functioning
 Medical Supports & Psychosocial supports= critical

Many people have also fallen through the cracks

 Deinstitutionalization
Effective deinstitutionalization requires:
 Supportive family network
 An accepting community
 Adequate community resources
 A place to live

 When it is insufficient, can lead to:

Homelessness
25% to 50% of homeless have mental disorders
Criminality
700 mental health beds in the criminal justice system
vs. 1500 inmates who require care
 Crime & Mental Illness
Disproportionate amount of inmates suffer from mental
disorders, and severe mental disorders
Criminality: additional layer of stigma

Oftentimes: blocked from accessing community resources

Hydraulic relationship between mental health care system

and the criminal justice system
QUESTIONS???