Social Representations, Temporality, Proper Noun and Mental Health

Abstract

The goal is to establish inter-dimensional links that involve social representations in the field of mental health: historicity and temporality, social and political contexts, ideas, practices and designations. In Jodelet’s words: “Social representations are in history and have a history” (Jodelet, 2015, p. 9). More specifically: “the study of representations makes it possible to capture history in the making” (Jodelet, 2015). At the same time, if naming is representing, and if the name is ontologized, such a name participates in social ontology in terms of symbol and crystallization (Moscovici, 1999). When these assumptions come into play in the psychosocial investigation of the processes for psychiatric reform, they gain weight and sense, as they enable us to discover how history, the act of naming, and social representations are intertwined. Indeed, the dispute on proper nouns within the mental health policy framework is no stranger than the classification of historical dramas or the use of analogies and metaphors such as “mental institution” and “concentration camps” (Goffman, 1981). A review of the validity of these debates seeks to relocate the analysis of its reproduction as a testimony of representations that refer to realities that continually need transformation.