Stephen Handsley

Sociology and nursing: Role performance in a psychiatric setting

The role of sociology in nursing continues to cast new light on many aspects of health and illness. Over the last 20 years, nursing practice has seen sociological theory become a valuable clinical tool, both in the diagnosis and prognosis of a wide range of illnesses and long-term conditions. Nevertheless, of these, the sociological examination of mental health problems and its impact upon nursing practitioners has received little coverage, simply because, as a discipline, mental health nursing has historically been wedded to a biomedical model, one which continues to embrace psychiatry/psychology as the driving force in the diagnosis and treatment of psychopathology. Adopting a sociological approach, this paper brings to light previously unexplored insights into the way nurses interact with patients experiencing mental health problems. Drawing on social interactionist methodology, this paper considers depression and other mental health problems in relation to current psychiatric nursing practice. Specifically, the paper focuses on aspects of role performance and interpersonal care in a psychiatric setting, and the impact the individual role may have on the wider aspects of institutional and official practices. The paper concludes by making a number of recommendations/observations for nursing practice.

Faith, Mental Health and Deviance: Possession or Illness?

The claim by some that culture is causative of mental disorders has become something of a cliched conceptualisation; a widely exaggerated misnomer which has, in many cases, resulted in those affected becoming labelled as either mad, bad or deviant (Scheff 1974). However, this (mis)association between what might be described as essentialist aetiology and evolutionary characteristics, in which cultural identity is portrayed as both natural and predisposed, and as a manifestation of mental disorder and deviancy, whilst continuing to command conclusive currency in many circles, can in fact be traced back to the preindustrial era which saw those possessed by ‘demons’ either exorcised or burnt or starved to death (Foucault 1977).