Changing conceptualisations of mental illness: Revisiting the concept of stigma

The dominant Western approach to understanding mental ‘illness’ is relatively recent in its formation, and culturally distinct in nature, driven predominantly by the medical profession. In this article Dominic Page discusses the historical conceptualisation of mental health and the influence of medicine on how mental illness is understood. It presents a summary of the criticisms of this dominant approach, before outlining emerging responses from the sociological literature, particularly the concept of stigmatisation. However, it highlights the clear limitations of such an approach in the context of employment exclusion, and presents an alternative model informed by concepts of structuration, the social model of disability and embodied impairment.