Thomas J. Scheff

The theory of mental illness is that the symptoms of mental illness can be considered to be violations of residual social norms, and that the careers of residual deviants can most effectively be considered as dependent on the societal reaction and the processes of roleplaying, when role-playing is viewed as part of a social rather than an exclusively individual system.

The theoretical formulation of symptoms as normative violations places great stress on the social context in which symptomatic behavior occurs as do the findings concerning the nearly automatic procedures in psychiatric screening. Implied in these considerations is a relationship among symptoms, context, and meaning that may be important in future research.… (more)