Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T20:23:06.825Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 2 - Mental Illness and Social Problems

from Part I - Problems Related to Health, Safety, and Security

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2018

By
Joan Busfield
Edited by
A. Javier Treviño
A. Javier Treviño
Affiliation:
Wheaton College, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

Mental illness is not only in itself considered a major social problem, it also often results from the diverse social problems individuals have to face. This chapter explores four questions relevant to the extent of mental illness as a social problem and to the way in which social problems generate mental ill health. How is mental illness defined? What do the data show about its extent? What is the evidence that mental illness is often the result of social problems in individuals’ lives? And finally, how should mental illness be dealt with?

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems , pp. 23 - 42
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association. 1952. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. 1968. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. 1980. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. 1987. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. 1994. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
Ash, P. 1949. The reliability of psychiatric diagnoses. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 44:272–76.Google Scholar
Bebbington, P., Jonas, S., Kuipers, E. et al. 2011. Childhood sexual abuse and psychosis: Data from a cross-sectional national psychiatric survey in England. British Journal of Psychiatry 199:29–37.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T., Ward, C., Mendelson, M. et al. 1962. Reliability of psychiatric diagnoses. American Journal of Psychiatry 119:351–57.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T., Ward, C. H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., and Erbaugh, J.. 1961. An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 4:561–71.Google Scholar
Bourdon, K. H., Rae, D. S., Locke, B. Z. et al. 1992. Estimating the prevalence of mental disorders in US adults from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Survey. Public Health Reports 107:663–68.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. 1952. Maternal Care and Mental Health. Geneva: World Health Organization.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., and Harris, T. O.. 1978. Social Origins of Depression. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Brown, P. 1985. The Transfer of Care: Psychiatric Deinstutionalization and Its Aftermath. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Brugha, T. S., ed. 1995. Social Support and Psychiatric Disorder. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Busfield, J. 2012. Challenging claims that mental illness has been increasing and mental well-being declining. Social Science and Medicine 75:581–88.Google Scholar
Busfield, J. 2014. Transforming misery into sickness: The genealogy of depression in the DSM. In Demedicalizing Misery II, edited by Moncrieff, J., Rapley, M., and Speed, E., 154–73. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Busfield, J. 2015. Assessing the overuse of medicines. Social Science and Medicine 131:199–206.Google Scholar
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2015. Prevalence of Individual Adverse Childhood Experiences. www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/prevalence.html.Google Scholar
Conrad, P. 1975. The discovery of hyperkinesis. Social Problems 12:12–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conrad, P. 2005. The shifting engines of medicalization. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 46:3–14.Google Scholar
Conrad, P., and Potter, D.. 2000. From hyperactive children to ADHD adults: observations of the expansion of medical categories. Social Problems 47:559–82.Google Scholar
Conrad, P., and Schneider, J. W.. 1980. Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.Google Scholar
Dear, M., and Wolch, J.. 1987. Landscapes of Despair: From Deinstitutionalisation to Homelessness. Oxford: Polity.Google Scholar
Department of Health. 2011. Talking Therapies: A Four-year Plan of Action. London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
Dohrenwend, B. S., and Dohrenwend, B. P., eds. 1974. Stressful Life Events: Their Nature and Effects. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Dorwick, C., and Frances, A.. 2013. Medicalising unhappiness. BMJ 347:f7140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dumit, J. 2012. Drugs for Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, V. J., Holden, G. W., Felitti, V. J., and Anda, R. F.. 2003. Relationship between multiple forms of childhood maltreatment and adult mental health in community respondents: Results from the Adverse Childhood Experiences study. American Journal of Psychiatry 120:1453–60.Google Scholar
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D. et al. 1998. The relationship of adult health status to childhood abuse and household dysfunction. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 14:245–58.Google Scholar
Ferrari, A. J., Charlson, F. J., Norma, R. E. et al. 2013. Burden of depressive disorders by country, sex, age and year: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease study, 2010. PLOS Medicine 10(11):e1001547.Google Scholar
Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G., Lewis, I. A., and Smith, C.. 1990. Sexual abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence, characteristics and risk factors. Child Abuse and Neglect 14:19–28.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1965. Madness and Civilization. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Fox, J. W. 1990. Social class, mental illness, and social mobility. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 31:344–53.Google Scholar
Frances, A. 1998. Problems in defining clinical significance in epidemiological studies. Archives of General Psychiatry 55:119.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, D. 1972. The Detection of Psychiatric Illness by Questionnaire. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D., and Huxley, P.. 1992. Common Mental Disorders. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hamilton, M. 1960. A rating scale for depression. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 23:56–62.Google Scholar
Herzberg, D. 2009. Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B., and Redlich, F. C.. 1958. Social Class and Mental Illness. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Holmes, T. H., and Rahe, R. M.. 1967. The social re-adjustment rating scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 11:213–18.Google Scholar
Horwitz, A. V., Widom, A. S., McLaughlin, J., and White, H. R.. 2001. The impact of childhood abuse and neglect on adult mental health: A prospective study. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 42:184–201.Google Scholar
Horwitz, A. V., and Wakefield, J. C.. 2007. The Loss of Sadness. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hudson, C. G. 2005. Socioeconomic status and mental illness. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 75:3–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kessler, R. C., McGonagle, K. A., Zhao, S. et al. 1994. Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III psychiatric disorders in the United States. Archives of General Psychiatry 51:8–19.Google Scholar
Kessler, R. C., Chiu, W. T., Demler, O. et al. 2005. Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of 12-month DSM-IV disorders in the national comorbidity survey replication. Archives of General Psychiatry 62:617–27.Google Scholar
Kirsch, I. 2009. The Emperor's New Drugs. London: Bodley Head.Google Scholar
Knowles, C. 2000. Bedlam on the Streets. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., and Williams, J. B.. 2001. The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal Medicine 16:606–13.Google Scholar
Lane, C. 2007. Shyness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lapouse, R. 1967. Problems in studying the prevalence psychiatric disorder. American Journal of Public Health 57:947–54.Google Scholar
Leighton, A. H. 1959. My Name is Legion. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
McManus, S., Meltzer, H., Brudh, T. et al. 2009. Adult Psychiatric Morbidity in England, 2007. London: NHS Information Centre.Google Scholar
Narrow, W. E., Rae, D. S., Robins, L. N., and Regier, D. A.. 2002. Revised prevalence estimates of mental disorders in the United States. Archives of General Psychiatry 59:115–23.Google Scholar
Pevalin, D. J. 2009. Housing repossessions, evictions and common mental illness in the UK. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 63:949–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Read, J., Agar, K., Argyle, N., and Aderhold, V.. 2003. Sexual and physical abuse during childhood and adulthood as predictors of hallucinations, delusions and thought disorder. Psychology and Psychotherapy 76:1–22.Google Scholar
Reeves, A., McKee, M., and Stuckler, D.. 2014. Economic suicides in the great recession in Europe and North America. British Journal of Psychiatry 205:246–47.Google Scholar
Regier, D. A., Kaelber, C. T., Rae, D. S. et al. 1998. Limitation of diagnostic criteria and assessment instruments for mental disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 55:109–15.Google Scholar
Riley, B., Asherson, P. J., and McGuffin, P.. 2003. Genetics and schizophrenia. In Schizophrenia. 2nd ed., edited by Hirsch, S. R. and Weinberg, D.. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Robins, L. N., Helzer, J. E., Croughan, M. D., and Ratcliff, K. S.. 1981. National Institute of Mental Health diagnostic interview schedule. Archives of General Psychiatry 38:381–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Russell, D. E. H. 1986. The Secret Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Rutter, M. 1972. Maternal Deprivation Reassessed. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.Google Scholar
Scull, A. 1993. The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain, 1700–1900. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Spitzer, R. L. 1998. Diagnosis and treatment are not the same. Archives of General Psychiatry 55:120.Google Scholar
Srole, L., Langner, T. S., Michael, S. T. et al. 1975. Mental Health in the Metropolis. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Swanson, J. W., and Holzer, C. E.. 1991. Violence and ECA data. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 42:954–55.Google Scholar
Swanson, J. W., Holzer, C. E., Ganju, V. K., and Jono, R. T.. 1990.Violence and psychiatric disorder in the community Evidence from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area surveys. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 41:761–70.Google Scholar
Szyf, M. 2009. The early life environment and the epigenome. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1790:878–85.Google Scholar
Thoits, P. A. 2010. Stress and health: Major findings and policy implications. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51(S):541–53.Google Scholar
Thoits, P. A. 2011. Mechanisms linking social ties and support to physical and mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 52:145–61.Google Scholar
Wakefield, J. C., and First, M. B.. 2012. Validity of the bereavement exclusion to major depression: Does the empirical evidence support the proposal to eliminate the exclusion in the DSM-5? World Psychiatry 11:3–10.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E., and Sartorius, N.. 1974. The Measurement and Classification of Psychiatric Symptoms. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Babor, Y., Brugha, T. et al. 1990. SCAN: Schedules for clinical assessment in neuropsychiatry. Archives of General Psychiatry 47:589–93.Google Scholar
World Health Organization. 1992. The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders. Geneva: World Health Organization.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×