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Some Relationships Between Psychiatry and the Social Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

D. Mechanic
D. Mechanic*
Affiliation:
Rene Dubos Professor of Behavioural Sciences, Institute for Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University, 30 College Avenue, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903, USA
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Extract

Beyond assuring biological survival, every society must have structures that nurture the young, prepare them for social roles and responsibilities, and that successfully integrate them with a reasonable level of motivation into ongoing patterns of activity. Societies must also have institutions that reinforce a sense of personal commitment to everyday affairs: the lack of a stake in social processes contributes to personal demoralisation and deviant behaviour. Deviance may also occur because of biological vulnerability or handicap, because socialisation fails, because demands exceed capacities, or as a result of sub-group identification being in conflict with dominant values. Psychiatric disorders are a sub-set of deviant behaviour.

Type
Lecture
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 149 , Issue 5 , November 1986 , pp. 548 - 553
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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