SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MADNESS

The Social Construction of Madness: In Defense of Self

The Social Construction of Madness: In Defense of Self

Introduction

Self defense madness is the most common and one of the most common mental disorders, yet most controversial, misunderstood, often wrongly diagnosed or not diagnosed and ignored. There is no psychological test or physical prevail with absolute certainty whether a person has self defense madness, hence the diagnosis is by psychologists and psychiatrists often misused to diagnose the most troublesome patients, used as a trash can as psychologist does not know what is going on, incorrectly used or not used. Self defense madness only in 10% of the cases has the same thing. Together with self defense madness occurs, e.g. depression, bipolar depression, OCD, phobias, antisocial and narcissistic tooth. This paper will discuss the case of Sybil and will answer the questions.

Briefly describe Sybil's early relationships with significant others and discuss how this interaction met (and failed to meet) her basic need for safety and significance.

Sybil's early relationships were not very good. She was the only daughter of her parents and did not enjoy good and friendly relations with her father and mother. She grew up in an environment where she had to face domestic violence. She was abused frequently by her mother. Her mother was known in the whole town for her 'witch like' laugh. Though she did not laugh much, but whenever she did, it sounded like a screech. People around Sybil made it very difficult for her to survive in the world and she was surrounded in a traumatic situation. She could not find any way to deal with the pain; therefore, the only choice that she had was to divert her attention because she could not change her situation nor could get rid of it.

These interactions did not meet her needs for safety and significance. She was the only child; therefore, had no sibling to share her feelings. She had no one whom she could talk to about the torture that she was suffering and was also unable to protect herself. She had to experience certain traumatic and anxiety provoking experiences. She was unable to handle the pain that she had to suffer due to the torture that her mother had confronted her with. Usually parents look after the basic need for safety, but in the case of Sybil nobody was present to look this basic need of her. The interactions were not enough as she was not allowed to go out anywhere alone. This also contributed in not finding anyone for fulfilling the need of safety.

Sybil had several central and peripheral alter personalities in her multiple personality complex. Discuss the structure and roles of her major “alter” personalities and discuss how some of the concepts developed in this course can make sense of what this constellation of alters was designed to achieve for the original personality.

Alter personality's means that Sybil had her own portion of memories, abilities and feelings and was unable to develop the self ...