The Social Construction of Mental Illness

Harvard FAS

Social construction refers to the way that people in a society collectively come to understand something. To say that mental illness is socially constructed is not to say that mental illnesses are “fake” or imagined. Rather, seeing mental illness as socially constructed means recognizing that the way we understand and treat mental illness is more than just “common sense” — it is the product of our history and culture, has changed dramatically over time, and very much remains “up for debate.”…