Insane Society: A Sociology of Mental Health by Peter Morrall

Author:Peter Morrall [Morrall, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Disease & Health Issues
ISBN: 9781351271141
Google: Y1LZDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-03-27T04:13:29+00:00

4 Inequality

Inequality is a key indicator of insane society. The contention that the public issue of inequality is linkable to the private trouble of madness is compelling.

There is much agreement across academic and professional disciplines and from policy makers that inequalities and the diagnosis of mental disorder (and physical ill-health) are linked. Furthermore, there is a general acceptance that the link is strong, and whilst ‘proof’ is problematic, it is probably causal. Confirmation and indictment of wealth inequality arises not only from left and liberal think-tanks, parties, and individual campaigners. It also come from agencies (organisations) and agents (individuals) with the opposite political stance and those of governments.

Public Health England (2018) is an executive agency of the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care. The agency is unequivocal about the close association between a diagnosis of mental disorder and factors in society. For example, in England psychotic disorder is diagnosed at a rate of nine times higher in people in the lowest fifth household income compared to those in the highest fifth. It recognises that these differences are connectable to the reduction in quality of life, contracting serious physical diseases, and a shortened lifespan. ‘Death’ inequality is the subject of the second section in this chapter. Unravelling the specific causative iniquities is accepted by Public Health England as complex, and involve factors such as poverty, inadequate education, poor housing or homelessness, unemployment, underemployment or reprehensible work settings, deficient diet. It declares these inequalities as ‘unfair’ and ‘avoidable’, and recommends improvements in which people live and work, and the building of stronger communities and social connections by reducing social isolation and increasing social cohesion. Such advocations are both laudable and lamentable.

What is missing from much of the analysis of this linkage, however, is an awareness or admission of the fundamental causes of inequality and concomitant fundamental solutions. Public Health England and most other agents and agencies commenting on inequality do not address the rudimentary reasons for the dispropionate distribution of wealth, death, and madness which lie in the insane structural make-up of society, that is the asymmetrical allocation of power. A discussion on that insanity forms the third part of this chapter.

An association between social circumstances such as impoverishment and iniquitous wealth and diagnosed mental disorder (and physical ill-health) is supported by a profusion of empirical evidence. A selection of the evidence connecting societal faults to psychological distress is presented in this chapter. What is also presented is a section of ideas which expound on these connections. Some of these ideas, including that from Fromm, attempt to provide answers to the fundamental cause of such a distinct and pervasive societal insanity. The use and abuse of power needs to be considered as one causal connector.

The societal situation for which there is an abundance of evidence is that of ‘wealth’ inequalities, and that is the topic for the first section in the chapter. Wealth, however, covers several circumstances which have differing effects. Connecting one societal situation with one or more positive or negative psychological states is also problematic.

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