ABSTRACT
Amongst person-centred thinkers, there is a widespread and increasing view that the causes of emotional and mental distress are not intrinsic, endogenous, solely interpersonal and a response to relationships with significant others but that their origin is social and/or environmental. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that distress is not entirely or primarily a response to internal processes and relationships but that these can be and are distorted by the social and environmental aspects of a person’s life. There is also an assumption that ‘madness’ is socially defined and that social and political circumstances at least contribute to and exacerbate mental distress. For example, Proctor (2002: 3) shows that ‘there is much evidence to associate the likelihood of suffering from psychological distress with the individual’s position in society with respect to structural power’. Sanders (2006a: 33) states that there is growing evidence that psychological distress has social, not biological causes. Indeed, he goes as far as to say that there is no such thing as mental illness. As supportive evidence for his position, he (p. 34) notes that (for example):
People who have suffered sexual abuse are three times more likely to receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia; people who are subject to poverty and ethnic discrimination are three times more likely to receive a diagnosis of psychosis other than schizophrenia; 264childhood neglect and abuse are highly correlated with … earlier age at first admission to psychiatric care and a higher number of admissions.
In Sanders (2007e: 184):he shows that in spite of the introduction of neuroleptic drugs, recovery rates from schizophrenia have not improved in fifty years;
declares that (p. 186) psychological disorders are names for theories not names for things that exist in nature;
and (p. 188) states that there is evidence that growing up in poverty has implications for psychological distress.
