The “Dignity of the Sick”: Managing Social Stigma by Mental Patients in the Community ^☆

Abstract

Purpose

The chapter revisits the concept of social stigma viewed from the perspective of mental patients integrated in the community based on the example of Geel, Belgium that historically utilized a family care model for a significant number of patients with severe mental illness.

Methodology/approach

Interpretive analysis of data presented in ethnographies on the Geel colony by Roosens (1979) and Roosens and Van de Walle (2007), showcasing 30 patients’ case studies in addition to research-based author narratives.

Findings

This study demonstrates that chronic mental patients tend to reject the sick role and the stigma associated with it by trying to influence their social image and how their status is being defined in the community. They appear to be active managers, not passive recipients of societal attitudes, and, furthermore, functional members of the community. By forgoing exemption from social roles carried by their significant impairment, mental patients continue to be contributing members of their host families, and in some cases develop into caregivers themselves completing the circle of role reversal.

Research limitations

The current analysis utilizes secondary data and therefore is restricted by the information included in the primary research.

Originality/value

The findings allow us to develop a deeper understanding of the social status chronic mental patients acquire in the community, and how it is influenced by the dynamics of social stigmatization and remedial work these social actors are compelled to perform. Additionally, the study contributes to the inclusion of the chronic patients’ perspective in research.

Citation

Tuntiya, N. (2016), "The “Dignity of the Sick”: Managing Social Stigma by Mental Patients in the Community ^☆ ", 50 Years After Deinstitutionalization: Mental Illness in Contemporary Communities (Advances in Medical Sociology, Vol. 17), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 235-260. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-629020160000017009