Abstract
At this point in the intellectual history of the sociology of mental health, we are aware of the complexities that are involved as individuals, and those around them, respond to situations that are defined as “disease,” “disorder,” “distress,” or even “problems in living.” Here, we discuss the backdrop of the early efforts that framed our initial contributions to understanding the use of lay and formal systems of care as well as how they continue to offer basic insights. However, we address the challenges that these directions and societal changes bring to our contemporary theoretical and research agendas. Finally, we offer a response to these challenges by reviewing some new avenues for utilization research that not only hold promise but are beginning to produce important results. These include a focus on multiple pathways to care, the “cultural turn” in sociology, and the life course approach to track simultaneous change in systems, individuals, and illness careers.
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Abbreviations
- CMHC:
-
Community Mental Health Center
- DSM-IV:
-
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV
- ECA:
-
Epidemiological Catchment Area
- GSS:
-
General Social Survey
- ICMHSR:
-
Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research
- INMHS:
-
Indianapolis Network Mental Health Study
- MHCPR:
-
Mental Health Care among Puerto Ricans (Study)
- NEM:
-
Network-Episode Model
- NSS-C:
-
National Stigma Study – Children
- NSS-R:
-
National Stigma Study – Replication
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the NIMH (Grant #R01MH074985) for funding the National Stigma Study – Replication (NSS-R) of the 2006 General Social Survey. Margarita Alegría, Bruce Link, and Karen Lutfey provided insights and comments on this and earlier versions of this chapter and on the various projects reported herein.
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Pescosolido, B.A., Boyer, C.A., Medina, T.R. (2013). The Social Dynamics of Responding to Mental Health Problems. In: Aneshensel, C.S., Phelan, J.C., Bierman, A. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4276-5_24
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