The Social Identity of the Chronic Schizophrenic

Abstract

Using ethnographic research methods in a sample of institutionalized male schizophrenics, an emic typology of patient social indentities was derived. Interview and observational data yielded three general status classes comprising thirteen associated identities: killer, fighter, assaultive person, fag, rapist, doper, drunk, victim, con, nut, weirdo, snitch, and disoriented. An individual's social identity varied depending upon his current setting within the hospital (official, private, patient-staff interaction, or outside). This emic-derived typology is con trasted with the etic typologies which dominate the literature (e.g. Goffman, Salisbury and Henry), and the importance of ethnographic study in social psychiatry is highlighted.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Becker, H.S. Outsiders. New York: Free Press , 1963.

Berger, P. & Luckmann, T. The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday, 1974.

Birenbaum, A. & Sagarin, E. Norms and Human Behavior. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1976 .

Blumer, H. Symbolic Interactionism. In Interactionism: Perspective and Method. New York: Prentice-Hall , 1962.

Caudill, W. The Psychiatric Hospital as a Small Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press, 1958.

Cooley, C.H. Human Nature and Social Order (1909). Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956.

Cumming, E. & Cumming, J. The Locus of Power in a large Mental Hospital. Psychiatry , 1956, 19, 361-369.

Erikson, E.H. Identity, Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton, 1968.

Freud, S. The Ego and the Id (1927). London: Hogarth Press, 1949.

10.

Gluckman, M. Gossip and Scandal. Current Anthropology, 1963, 4, 307-316.

11.

Goffman, E. The Presentation of Self in Everday Life. New York: Doubleday, 1959.

12.

Goffman, E. Asylums. New York: Doubleday, 1961.

13.

Goodenough, W. Rethinking Status and Role. In The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, Monograph No. 1, pp. 1-24. London : Tavistock, 1965.

14.

Hallowell, A.I. Culture and Experience. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1955.

15.

Henry, J. Space and Power on a Psychiatric Unit. In Wessen, A. (Ed), The Psychiatric Hospital as a Social System . Springfield: Thomas, 1964.

16.

Linton, R. The Study of Man. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts , 1936.

17.

Mead, G.H. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.

18.

Merton, R.K. Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe. IL: Free Press, 1957.

19.

Redfield, R. The Primitive World and Its Transformations. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1953.

20.

Rogers, C.R. A Theory of Therapy, Personality, and Interpersonal Relationships, as Developed in the Client-Centered Framework. In Psychology: A Study of Science, Volume 3, pp. 184-256. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959.

21.

Salisbury, R. Structures of Custodial Care. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962.

22.

Sullivan, H.S. The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. New York: Norton, 1953.

23.

Wallace, A.F.C. Anthropological Contributions to the Theory of Personality. In Norbeck, E. , et al. (Eds), The Study of Personality, pp. 41-53. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.

24.

Wheelis, A. The Quest for Identity. New York: Norton, 1958.