Individual Resources and Mental Hospitalization: A Comparison and Evaluation of the Societal Reaction and Psychiatric Perspectives

According to the psychiatric perspective, social and economic resources facilitate the disturbed individual's entrance into psychiatric treatment. In contrast, the societal reaction perspective views resources as enabling the individual to avoid being channelled into the role of the mentally ill. This paper examines the role social and economic resources play in mental hospitalization, comparing the societal reaction and psychiatric perspectives. The information contained in the literature, as well as data obtained from 258 state hospital patients, indicates that the psychiatric perspective comes closer than the societal reaction perspective to describing what typically occurs.