Socialisation as a Process Involving Provision of Psychosocial Need and Including Consequences of Privation

Kuhn (1962) has argued that when scientists work within a paradigm, not only do they tend to work with data that support and refine that paradigm, but they perceive the world in a way that is consistent with that paradigm. Moreover, scientists are not objective in paradigm choice, but are swayed by scientific fashions of the day. Because careers depend on it there is a vested interest in maintaining that paradigm.  This results in scientists ignoring evidence that does not fit their chosen paradigm.  This is exactly what has happened in psychiatry. 

There is an acute need for a paradigm change in psychiatry as it has been revealed by various studies and over time, that psychiatry is often not fit for purpose, that many psychiatrists themselves frequently do not understand the difference between normal and abnormal behaviour, nor do they understand causes of abnormality, leading to inadequate and inappropriate attitudes and treatment of afflicted people.  Moreover research into mental health issues often is based on false assumptions such as psychoses (e.g. schizophrenia) are caused by genes, when evidence clearly demonstrates that this cannot possibly be true. 

This is coupled with a conservatism that is generated by its traditional attachment to medical science, which is the study of the human body and as such, its paradigm is totally unsuited to dealing with the human mind.  This paper is an attempt to provide such a change and cause progress towards a more pragmatic approach regarding issues surrounding concept of and response to abnormality and mental health. 

Here, a hypothesis is being elucidated that provides ideas based on evidence that all forms of deviance or abnormality are caused by inadequate and inappropriate socialisation, in physiologically normal humans, thereby locating issues surrounding mental health and  therefore deviance, away from medical science and more rationally in the social and behavioural sciences. 

And while the author does not deny that there are occasions when examination of physiological influence is important, such as for a brain damaged patient, for most afflicted people, environment is the overriding factor in causation.  Indeed, it has been suggested by some geneticists that the nature – nurture debate is over:  it is nature through nurture. 

Deviance by an individual is caused by inadequate and inappropriate socialisation. It includes the psychoses, addictions, autism, anxiety states, murder, child abuse and domestic violence among other. It involves situational, that is, relationship and household structures, leading to inadequate development of personal characteristics in the dependent human. 

The hypothesis has been formulated as a result of: having a background in social sciences, reviewing relevant literature (including biographies of serial killers, literature on child abuse, among other), conducting unstructured and semi structured interviews with several groups of people including homeless and unemployed males as well as very successful people , having lived and worked in three different countries with disparate cultures, and life experiences as a parent and a class room

Author(s): Valerie Saunders

Abstract | PDF

Share This Article