Social class and mental illness

This is the final report of one part of a research project carried out by a team of social scientists and psychiatrists which examined the interrelations between social stratification and mental illness in an urbanized community centered in New Haven, Connecticut. The research reported here focused on two questions: Is mental illness related to social class? Does a mentally ill patient's position in the status system affect how he is treated for his illness? To answer these questions the authors studied the social structure of the community, the psychiatric patients in treatment, the institutions where they are cared for, and the psychiatrists treating them. Successive chapters tell the story of how members of the community became patients, how they and their families responded to psychiatric intervention, and the effects of social class on patients and therapists. The book ends with some recommendations on what our society could do about improving socially determined shortcomings of psychiatric practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).