Unification and differentiation: a study of the social representations of mental illness

Abstract

Using the theory of social representations, this small-scale, qualitativestudy considers whether mental illness is differentiated by a laypopulation. Three focus groups (total n=17), using students were conductedand content analysed, along with a random sample of articles from twoBritish newspapers, ‘The Mirror’ and ‘The Daily Telegraph’. A strongsocial representation of unified ‘mental illness’ was found, with the centralaspects of unpredictability, permanency, violence and Otherness. However,differentiation of mental illness in social representation was also found,both along biomedical lines, and through the idea of a set of continuabetween the more normal and the more mentally ill. It will be suggestedthat differentiation occurs in today’s society due to efforts to maintain bothexisting ideology and a positive identity, but that any condition that can belabelled ‘mental illness’ will also be inevitably associated with the unifiedrepresentation of mental illness, limiting the effect of this differentiation.It will be concluded that differentiation of mental illness has been somewhatoverlooked in social representations studies, and merits further attentionfrom a theoretical perspective.