Social class and mental illness : A community study

• Published in: American journal of public health (1971) Vol. 97; no. 10; pp. 1756 - 1757
• Main Authors: HOLLINGSHEAD, August B, REDLICH, Frederick C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Public Health Association 01-10-2007
• Subjects: A B Hollingshead; Biological and medical sciences; F C Redlich; Females; General aspects; Medical sciences; Mental disorders; Mental institutions; Miscellaneous; Patients; Population; Psychiatrists; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychosis; Psychotherapy; Public health; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Social classes; Society; Socioeconomic factors; Voices from the Past; Human; Mental health; Mental disorder; Social class; Social aspect; Community; Public health
• ISSN: 0090-0036; 1541-0048
• DOI: 10.2105/ajph.97.10.1756

There is a definite tendency to induce disturbed persons in class I [the most affluent class, highly educated, consisting of business and professional leaders] and II [generally educated beyond high school, managerial positions, living in the better neighborhoods] to see a psychiatrist in more gentle and "insightful" ways than is the practice in class IV [the working class, engaged in skilled or semiskilled manual occupations, generally completed some high school] and especially in class V [the lowest class; semiskilled factory hands and unskilled laborers who generally have not completed elementary school, living in the worst areas of town], where direct, authoritative, compulsory, and, at times, coercively brutal methods are used.