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Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. It can be argued that mental illness is a social construction. Social constructionism states that something only exists because society built it, created it or needed it for its own development or interest (Boghossian, 2001). It will be argued through literatures whether mental illness is a social construct or not.
There is evidence to suggest that the way people view mental illness and the way it can be treated is dependent on society. Thompson (2010) used case-control sampling methods to investigate if stereotypes influence the outcome of psychiatric evaluations used in the criminal justice system. This study found that race and gender stereotypes influenced the outcome when it comes to assessing mental illness. This argument is also related to how every society has its own individual beliefs about what is normal behavior. For instance, in ancient Japanese tradition suicide was respected as it was a way to redeem your sins (Kawanishi, 2008), however suicide in catholic societies goes against Christ and is linked to poor mental health (Gearing et al., 2009). From this point of view, it is argued that the existence of mental illness is reliant on particular cultures. These findings are also supported by Szasz, (1960) who denied the complete existence of mental illness and disputed that mental illness was created to control people who did not fit into current social systems. He further argues that speaking of mental illness is speaking metaphorically as disease suggests disease of the body, and the mind is not a part of the body. Together there is evidence to indicate that mental illness is a social construct.
However, it could be argued that there is strong evidence which supports the reality of mental illness. Caspi et al. (2003) conducted a prospective-longitudinal study which tested why stressful experiences lead to depression in some people but not others. The study suggested that young people who go through emotionally stressful experiences and who have inherited a variant form of the serotonin transporter gene are more prone to depression. It has been suggested through functional magnetic resonance imaging that brain functions change in accordance to the gene variant (Weinberger et al., 2006). These results support mental illness not being a social construction. More support for mental illness not being a social construct comes from evidence from studies which look into whether drug treatment is effective in improving the symptoms of mental disorders. The schizophrenia statistics (2017) stated that 10 years after the initial diagnosis, 25% of schizophrenics have experienced recovery and 25% are much improved after taking effective treatment. These statistics further reinforce how mental illness is not a social construct, as if it wasnt real, people wouldnt be able to show signs of recovery.
Mental illness being a social construct or not is an argument which is continuing to this day. There is solid evidence to suggest mental illness is dependent on the society a person is in, thus making it a social construct. However, there is also evidence biologically and through genetics to say it has not been socially constructed. To conclude, for some mental illnesses it can be said they are a social construct, however for others it may not. Essentially, more research needs to be done on this argument.
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