Being Mentally Ill: The Sociological Theory. Aldine Press.

The controversial appraisal of the kinds of deviant behavior called mental illness incorporates the concept of social process into a model of the dynamics of mental disorders. Approaching mental illness as a means of escape from the pressure of reality, BEING MENTALLY ILL questions the "disease model" of the individual prominent in current psychiatric and psychoanalytic theory. While customary psychiatric research seeks the causes of mental illness, Scheff views mental illness as the violation of residual rules--social norms so taken for granted that they are not explicitly verbalized.
Scheff first develops a sociological theory of mental illness, providing a framework for field studies reported in subsequent chapters. Two key assumptions emerge: most chronic mental illness is at least in part a social role, and societal reaction usually determines entry into that role. Throughout, the sociological model of mental illness is compared and contrasted with more conventional medical and psychological models in an attempt to delineate significant problems for further analysis and research.
The second edition has been expanded and revised to encompass the considerable controversy engendered by the original, and also to evaluate new developments in the field.

New to this edition are discussions of the massive use of tranquilizers in the treatment of mental illness, changing mental health laws, clinical discoveries of the neurotransmitters, new social science and psychiatric studies, and the controversy surrounding the "labeling theory" of mental illness itself.
By exploring findings from several fields of social research BEING MENTALLY ILL formulates a unique set of conceptual tools to assist socially oriented studies of mental disorder.
The Third Edition of BEING MENTALLY ILL will be published in Fall of 1999. The Preface and Chapter 1 of the new edition can be found as # 11 of the Linked Articles on this website.