ABSTRACT
The medical metaphor "mental illness" suggests a determinate process that occurs within the individual: the unfolding and development of disease. Since in the great majority of cases of mental illness, the existence of this underlying illness is unproved, need to discuss "symptomatic" behavior in terms that do not involve the assumption of illness. Two concepts seem to be suited best to the task of discussing psychiatric symptoms from a sociological point of view: rule-breaking and deviance. The chapter is devoted to a discussion of the origins, prevalence, and course of the behavior that it defined as residual rule-breaking. The hypothesis suggested that an important factor (but not the only factor) in the stabilization of residual rule-breaking is the societal reaction. Residual rule-breaking may be stabilized if it is defined to be evidence of mental illness and/or the rule-breaker is placed in a deviant status and begins to play the role of the mentally ill.
