The Sociology of Knowledge and Community Mental Health Research

The sociology of knowledge is concerned with the social genesis of ideas as well as extra-theoretical influences upon their forms and content. An attempt is made to assess some of these influences upon community mental health research. A comparison is made of the concepts, theories, and methods in community mental health research with that of general sociology. The major referents of the comparison are the Detroit, Hutterite, Kalamazoo, Midtown Manhattan, New Haven, Nova Scotia, Philadelphia, and Texas studies. Alternatives to current concepts, theories, and methods in community mental health research are considered. Among the major influences are the value-free perspective, medical perspective, expediency perspective, demographic perspective, attribute perspective, empiricist procedure, and the inductive procedure.