How Mental Illness is Considered a Social Construct: Sociological View

This essay examines mental illness through a sociological lens, arguing that it is, in part, a social construct. It begins by defining mental illness and exploring its causes, including biological, environmental, and genetic factors. The main body of the essay then delves into three key sociological theories: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Functionalism is used to explain how societal views and expectations can impact individuals with mental illness, while conflict theory highlights how social inequalities and power dynamics contribute to mental health issues. Symbolic interactionism is employed to analyze how interactions and the meanings people assign to mental illness shape individual experiences. The essay concludes by summarizing the arguments and reiterating the significance of understanding mental illness within a social context.

How Might Mental Illness Be
Considered A Social Construct

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Mental illness and its cause....................................................................................................3
Occurrence of mental illness..................................................................................................4
Functionalism theory..............................................................................................................4
Conflict theory........................................................................................................................6
Symbolic interactionism.........................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Social refers to an idea or thought develop and accepted by people living in society. It
includes specific thinking of individuals in regards to people with mental illness due to which
they face certain problem while surviving the society. However, it is observed that people
discriminate citizens with mental illness partially which develop issues for them regarding daily
basis survival. Moreover, it also consist the fact of creating complications in their psychological
condition due to discriminated behaviour of people in society (O’Reilly, Lester and Muskett,
2017). People think that person with minor mental illness is abnormal and harm them due to
which such patient face difficulties to deal with societal circumstances daily. It consist the fact
that negative psychological thinking of society is responsible for number if suicide committed by
mental patients. It is necessary for these people to gain support of other people which helps to
overcome with their mental health problem easily. The present essay is based on the topic that
'how might mental illness be considered a social construct' that is explained here. It will focus on
appropriate sociological paradigms or theories in order to define about social construct regarding
mental illness.
MAIN BODY
Mental illness and its cause
Mental illness can be described as health condition in which abnormalities take place due to
change in emotions, thinking and behaviour of an individual. It includes number if mental health
problems such as dementia, schizophrenia, stress, depression, addictive behaviours, eating
disorder, dissociative identity disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorder and so on. Meanwhile,
mental illness consist minor issues also which get critical due to appropriate behaviour of society
for a person. It has been analysed that social construct regarding mental patients is responsible
for developing various complexities in their psychological condition that become difficult for
care practitioners to deal with the same. In other words, there are number of causes behind
mental illness including inherited traits, environmental exposures before birth and brain
chemistry (Abiri and et. al., 2016). This means, inherited traits can be considered as a most
common cause for occurrence of mental illness because it is genetically transmitted from their
blood relatives. However, environmental exposures before birth consist relevant stressors, toxins,
alcohol or drugs and inflammatory conditions at the time when womb can be sometimes

connected with mental sickness of a person. In addition to this, brain chemistry involves
neurotransmitters that are known as natural chemicals which functions as carrying the signals to
other parts of body as well as brain. Moreover, the impairment in neural networks consisting
neurotransmitters create problem in nerve system change and nerve receptors that results into
depression and other emotional disorders (Weaver and et. al., 2019). These factors are
responsible for occurrence of various minor and major psychological issues from which people
get suffered. Negative behaviour towards mental patients create complications due to which
many of them commit suicide.
On the other hand, diagnosis of psychological problems is essential to identify actual causes in
order to overcome with them accordingly. It includes physical examination, lab tests and
psychological evaluation. This means, a physical exam will conduct with psychiatrist in order to
identify physical problems and present symptoms to understand actual situations of individual. In
addition to this, lab test consist blood test, CT (computerised tomography) Scan of brain, MRI
(magnetic resonance imaging) and EEG (electroencephalogram) which helps to identify injured
part of brain for treatment. Meanwhile, identification of injured part is favourable to treat the
specific mental disorder to respect to make a person well-being (Zhang, Mak and Chan, 2017).
Occurrence of mental illness
The mental illness occurs in behaviour and way of thinking of an individual due to presence of
some psychological injury or abnormality. This is because of various causes that inherited traits,
environmental effects, biological impact and brain injury. In other words, different types of
psychological problem occurs in people due different causes which get treated by differentiated
medication or treatment. As per views of Gjesfjeld (2019), social construct regarding mentally ill
people impact on their psychological state in positive or negative manner. This linked to a kind
of societal thinking, beliefs and behaviours towards these patients that facilitate improve or
complicate their actual mental situation. Moreover, these problems occur due certain biological
factors like genetics, infections, brain defects or injury, prenatal damage, substance abuse and
other elements.
Functionalism theory
Functionalism can be described as a philosophy of mind that is responsible for preparing a
specific mental states of an individual which are linked with functions. It consists a unique
concept in which what a mental condition do is more important besides of what they are

composed of. Functionalism consist a wide range of factor such as sociology, economic,
architecture and psychology. This means that negative social construct in regards to mentally
sick people is responsible for creating hatred of themselves due to discriminated behaviour in
society which may force them to attempt to harm themselves. Holley, Tavassoli and Stromwall,
(2016) agree with the fact that positive thinking of society is much effective to support
psychological ill individual to gain new way of living and overcome with their mental health
problems easily. In addition to this, the functionalism can be considered as a philosophical thesis
in terms of nature of different types of mental situations accordingly. Meanwhile, it is observed
that functionalist theories are responsible for determining mental states to be identified through
its causal relations to sensory stimulations, behaviour as well as other psychological situations.
For instance, functionalism states that condition of pain indicates that some injury is happen in
the body that develop another belief of happened wrong incident with human body along with
creation of desire to overcome with it by generating anxiety. This is because in absence of any
stronger and conflicting desire that cause wincing or moaning.
In other words, it has been examined that all and only creatures with internal states which meet
these situations or pay these roles are able of being in pain. Moreover, it can be said that mental
illness may considered as a social construct because there are various social aspects which create
conditions of depression, stress and other relevant health due to societal thoughts & beliefs.
Crowe, Averett and Glass (2016), agree with opinion that people has thoughts that cancer is very
complicated disease and not able to treat whereas the fact is it can be easily treated at earlier and
stages by applying effective clinical methods. But misconception of citizens toward cancer
patient make them internally weak which reduce their will power to fight with disease and
become well-being. It is also responsible for creating mental health problems like stress,
depression trauma etc. due to which the selected topic can be justified. It is well known that
morally strong person can easily overcome with their physiological or psychological health
problems whereas internal weak person gains complications earlier. Negative beliefs of society
are responsible for development of mental health issues in more people. Additionally, it has been
identified that one person in every 25 people is mentally sick and suffering from any kind of
minor or major psychological problem.

Conflict theory
Conflict Theory can be described as an aspect of competition in society in terms of distribution
of resources, power and inequality. It can be considered as a fact about an arena in which factor
of inequality exist which is responsible for developing various conflicts and social change
accordingly. Basically, this conflict theory primarily given by Karl Marx who is known as the
father of social conflict theory. However, this means that a strong competition take place among
citizens of society due to availability of limited resources that create conflict among different
parts of society. In other words, Tang and Bie, 2016 states that the factor of inequality took its
vital place among societal aspects in which few of specific communities or groups get
discriminated from society. This means, these selected communities did not get proper
education, employment, compensation and many more their desires remain incomplete.
It is observed that they remain poor due to their weak economic and health condition.
This is because they are not capable to fulfil their basic needs, like food, water, shelter, clothing
etc. From the perspective of Thomas and et. al. (2016), it is determined that discrimination make
people feel negative they have commit a crime to being human in that particular community so
that they face partial behaviour everywhere in country. For example, indigenous Austrians are
separated from society due to discriminated behaviour of people among them due to which they
did not get proper education and employment which impact on their physiological and
psychological health.
The factor of discrimination is a kind of poison of for society which is responsible for destroying
peace, happiness and wealth. This means if mental illness is not social construct then mental
cases may reduce its spread in country and relevant complications can be avoided easily. In
contrary to this, Opare-Henaku and Utsey (2017) states that if mental illness is social construct
then ration of individuals with psychological problem get rapidly increase and create a situation
every person will become mentally ill with minor or major depression or stress. This means that
competition and struggle of people regarding limited resources develop social conflicts in society
due to which mental illness occur. According to conflict theory, it is observed that society can be
consider as a divided along lines of economic class between proletarian working class and the
bourgeois ruling class. Moreover, it simply suggests about competition and struggle among
people belongs to different sections of society due to which conflicts take place. This conflict
exists in the form of inequality, discrimination and partial behaviour that impact negatively on

mind sets of separated community individuals which create various mental disorders among
them.
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic Interactionism refers to a kind of micro level theory which consist the concept of
analysing relationships and interactions in society. It includes symbolic interactions of an
individual with their family members, school mates, friends, relatives, neighbours and other
relevant people. This theory provides way of understanding about relationships among people on
society to analyse their interactions. However, it is also helpful to evaluate symbolic interaction
which provide support to examine actual patterns of interaction with each other. Krupa and
Lysaght, (2016) agree with that it includes to examine specific fact that if an individual is
discriminating indigenous Australians then another person also does the same with them. This
means it is a kind of pattern of interacting with individuals belongs to indigenous group of the
nation. This behaviour is so negative for them and their entire lives because of its deep as well as
strong impact. Meanwhile, it suggests that the discrimination among them create difficulties for
them along with rapid increase in chances of occurring mental illness in them. Moreover, they
even did not get proper and immediate treatment many times due to factor of inequality in
healthcare institutions.
According to this theory, it states that observation of people behaviour and their interaction is
helpful to understand symbolic world that has been created by people of society. It consists the
symbolic actions and patterns which create and recreate meanings during interactions of citizens.
However, these patterns are favourable to analyse about wrong beliefs and thoughts of people for
other people due to which mental illness can be known as a social construct (Lauveng and et. al.,
2017). Moreover, it has been analysed that symbolic interactionism provides an effective
evaluation regarding thoughts and behaviour in society which helps in analysing about mental
illness that it can be a social construct.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay, it has been concluded that mental illness can be described as
psychological state emotional, behavioural and impairment in thoughts. It includes various
mental disorders like bipolar disorder, depression, trauma etc. that cane created due to negative
behaviour of society. However, it consists various theories including functionalism which

includes related functioning according to mind set. Moreover, it is observed that negative
thoughts, discriminated actions towards specific communities responsible for creating
physiological and psychological health problems. Additionally, the conflict theory and symbolic
interactionism is helpful to justify the fact that mental illness is social construct.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Abiri, S. and et. al., 2016. Stigma related avoidance in people living with severe mental illness
(SMI): Findings of an integrative review. Community mental health journal, 52(3),
pp.251-261.
Crowe, A., Averett, P. and Glass, J.S., 2016. Mental illness stigma, psychological resilience, and
help seeking: What are the relationships?. Mental Health & Prevention, 4(2), pp.63-68.
Gjesfjeld, C.D., 2019. Social Control and Serious Mental Illness: Understanding and Challenging
Current Ideologies. In Political Authority, Social Control and Public Policy (pp. 141-
153). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Holley, L.C., Tavassoli, K.Y. and Stromwall, L.K., 2016. Mental illness discrimination in mental
health treatment programs: Intersections of race, ethnicity, and sexual
orientation. Community mental health journal, 52(3), pp.311-322.
Krupa, T. and Lysaght, R., 2016. Perspectives on how social business can engender work
identity among people with mental illness. Journal of Policy Practice, 15(1-2), pp.36-
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Tang, L. and Bie, B., 2016. Narratives about mental illnesses in China: The voices of Generation
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Thomas, E.C. and et. al., 2016. Self-efficacy as a mediator of the relationship between social
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Weaver, C. and et. al., 2019. Offenders living with mental illness: How are they perceived by
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Zhang, R., Mak, W.W. and Chan, R.C., 2017. Perceived primal threat of mental illness and
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