Unification and differentiation: a study of the social representations of mental illness

Abstract

Using the theory of social representations, this small-scale, qualitative
study considers whether mental illness is differentiated by a lay
population. Three focus groups (total n=17), using students were conducted
and content analysed, along with a random sample of articles from two
British newspapers, ‘The Mirror’ and ‘The Daily Telegraph’. A strong
social representation of unified ‘mental illness’ was found, with the central
aspects of unpredictability, permanency, violence and Otherness. However,
differentiation of mental illness in social representation was also found,
both along biomedical lines, and through the idea of a set of continua
between the more normal and the more mentally ill. It will be suggested
that differentiation occurs in today’s society due to efforts to maintain both
existing ideology and a positive identity, but that any condition that can be
labelled ‘mental illness’ will also be inevitably associated with the unified
representation of mental illness, limiting the effect of this differentiation.
It will be concluded that differentiation of mental illness has been somewhat
overlooked in social representations studies, and merits further attention
from a theoretical perspective.