Publication Date

2019

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Bennardo, Giovanni

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Anthropology

Abstract

For this thesis, I interviewed outpatients and clinicians from mental health treatment providers from the DeKalb, Illinois area to investigate the cultural models of mental illness held by both groups. I employed ethnographic methods of semi-structured interviews, and with cognitive tasks (free-listing, and pile sorting) to research similarities and differences between the outpatients’ and mental health treatment providers’ cultural models of ‘mental illness.’ Both mental health clinicians and outpatients have experience with disorders commonly termed ‘mental illness.’ I found differences of experience and identity seemed to more strongly influence one’s cultural model of mental illness than one’s level or type of education.

Among mental health treatment providers, there were explicitly and implicitly expressed biomedical organizations of mental health disorders. A more complex psycho-social understanding of mental illness was explained by outpatients in terms of a mental illness’

symptoms, specifically “trauma.” This included explanations of how symptoms of mental illness contribute to personal identity and social expression. Pile-sort tasks wherein participants

organized different mental illnesses into groups served to elucidate these mental models and the differences between clinicians and outpatients. From this, I conclude that outpatients’ intimate, personal experiences with mental health disorders contribute to mold a different cultural model of mental illness than that held by mental health treatment providers (and by extension, the public at large without any experience of mental health treatment).

Extent

168 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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