ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the generality of the labeling paradigm by dealing with the question: What makes the label stick from the actor’s perspective? It will be maintained that, while the basic tenets of labeling theory seem correct, the theory is still incomplete, since labeling theorists have taken self-labeling largely as a matter of fact and, hence, have not specified the conditions under which social labeling is accompanied by or results in self-labeling. In psychological-psychiatric circles, labeling analysis has taken the form of a crusade against the medical model of mental disorder and its elaborate diagnostic labels. Furthermore, taking the side of the underdog labelees, as some theorists do by leading an “anti-labeling crusade,” is by no means synonymous with studying the differential meaning of labeling from the actor’s real experiential perspective. T. R. Sarbin contends that the use of the reified medical metaphor to refer to mental disorder results in social rejection of persons labeled mentally ill.
