public perception of people with mental illness in 1940s and 50s in America

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I am a high school student who was assigned a project on the American public perception of people with mental illnesses in the 1940s and 50s. I was wondering if you could suggest any resources where I could find this information. Please help!!! Thank you!!

-- Madeleine Mersky (thaqueenbee7@aol.com), October 31, 2001

Answers

[Posted for FW by cdg.]

There were a number of studies in the late 1950s and 1960s on how the way mental illness was described and presented affected public perceptions. This of course was when the criticism of "the medical model" was at its height. and a number of people were writing on the general effects that labelling people had on others. The sociologist Thomas Scheff was one well known figure who wrote a great deal on the subject. Irving Goffman of course was another, althoug he focussed on the social process by which someone came to be labelled with mental illness. Some of the studies of the effects of how mental illness was 'framed' I believe can be found in the American Psychologist in the early 1960s. I think Theodore Sarbin's books may also contain a bibliography relevent to this topic. The student might also check the famous study--and the reactions to it-- conducted by David Rosenhan on the experiences of a group of researchers who admitted themselves to a mental hospital

-- Fredric Weizmann (weizmann@YorkU.CA), November 01, 2001.


[Posted for DS by cdg.]

This has been a contentious topic with some arguing that the public has a good sense of mental illness and doesn't like those who "have" it and others arguing that people are slow to recognize it but rejecting when they do. Some argue that people reject only the most severe and seemingly "dangerous" forms. Etc. Some have argued that there have been significant changes in our attitudes toward mental illness from at least 1970 on, but others argue not. I treat this at some length in my forthcoming book on stereotyping which unfortunately is not yet available. Meanwhile probably the best reference for this time frame is a review by Rabkin in Psychological Bulletin in 1972.

-- Dave Schneider (sch@RICE.EDU), November 01, 2001.


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