Mental Illness, Social Construction of

Sociologists have long been interested in understanding how our world is socially constructed. This perspective views the world as created (and recreated) through human interaction over time, and stands in contrast to essentialism. While it can be argued that our understanding and responses to health in general are, at least in part, socially constructed, mental illness provides an especially interesting window to understand the social construction of reality. Given the contested nature of what constitutes a “mental” illness, specifically whether it constitutes a real biological problem or a socially constructed cultural problem, much of the early writings on social construction in medical sociology, and even psychiatry, focused on the social construction of mental illness.