Insanity a Social Problem

Abstract

Mental and nervous disharmonies exist not only within the individual, but they are equally demonstrable within social clusters, such as the family, and other groups, social, religious, political, etc. To reckon constructively with the pathological conditions of the insane is to reckon with these expressions as an integral part of our common social system. But investigation shows that the social group, whether represented by the family, the institution, or by other social clusters, is, like the individual, equally resistant to all approach and for the same reason, namely, that personal systematization and self-envelopment have automatically rendered them inaccessible to any view that is not in accord with the private view maintained by them. It is important, therefore, to secure conditions favorable to an analysis of our institutional prejudices if we are not to give warrant to these spurious formations within the tissue of our social organism. This situation may be experimentally demostrated through the analysis of social groups, and leads inevitably to an altered basis of psychiatric approach.