A history of stigma : towards a sociology of mental illness and American psychiatry

• Main Author: Donovan, Joan
• Format: Others
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/976135/1/MR45460.pdf; Donovan, Joan <http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/view/creators/Donovan=3AJoan=3A=3A.html> (2008) A history of stigma : towards a sociology of mental illness and American psychiatry. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

Using genealogical discourse analysis, this project examines how American psychiatrists utilized the concept of stigma in The American Journal of Psychiatry as it relates to illness and treatment from 1846-2007. Once historicized, stigma takes the form of four themes, i.e. the stigma of psychiatric practice, euphemistic stigma, the stigma of treatment, and the stigma of mental ilhness. These themes each result in numerous strategies to diminish their effects in the population and the individual patient through national campaigns to combat stigma. This thesis also identifies the role of an emerging medicalization of mental illness' stigma and how this medicalization has specific implications for psychiatric treatment and social inclusion. The alignment of stigma alongside particular diagnostic categories has far reaching consequences as it attempts to circumvent the critical discourse which began with the anti-psychiatry movement in the 1960s. In this way, this thesis reveals American psychiatry's effort to de-stigmatize itself through campaigns to reduce the stigma of mental illness.