The Effects of the Patient's Diagnosis on Professionals and Students in a Psychiatric Setting: A Labeling Perspective

Abstract

Health professionals in the psychiatric field have begun to ask to what extent the patient's diagnosis influences their perceptions of his behaviour and prognosis. The proponents of the societal reaction perspective (or labeling theory) no doubt have sensitized professionals to the impact of diagnostic labels in particular and psychiatric labels in general. Theorists such as Becker (1973: 179) have pointed out that labeling places a person in circumstances which make it harder for him to continue the normal routine of everyday life and thus provoke him to abnormal actions. "Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an 'offender'. The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label" (Becker: 9). Labeling is not necessarily a function of the individual's acts or symptoms, but of societal reactions to certain behaviours which violate social norms and rules of conduct (Erickson, 1962). This approach gives more emphasis than traditional psychiatric theory to social processes, yet does not entirely neglect individual aspects (Scheff, 1966: 17). The purpose of this theory, then, is not to reject psychiatric and psychological formulations in their totality, but to develop a model which will complement the individual system models by providing a complete and explicit contrast (Scheff, 1966: 285-56).