SOCB51H3 Chapter Notes -Psychosis, Hospital Volunteer, On Being
Document Summary
On being sane and insane places - d. l. There are a great deal of conflicting data on the reliability, utility, and meaning of such terms as sanity insanity mental illness and schizophrenia. What may be viewed as normal in one culture may not be normal in another so the notions of normality and abnormality are not as accurate: some behaviors are deviant or odd. Murders are deviant and so are hallucinations, and there is a personal anguish that is associated with mental illness. Anxiety and depression exist and psychological suffering that exists: however sanity and insanity; normality and abnormality and the diagnoses that flow from them may be less substantial. Psychiatric diagnoses in this view are in the minds of the observers and are not valid summaries of characteristics displayed by the observed. If on the other hand the sanity of the pseudopatients were not discovered serious difficulties would arise for early psychiatric diagnosis.
