Mental illness, family and networks in a London borough: two cases studied by an anthropologist

The situation of crisis undergone by a family when one of its members is admitted to psychiatric hospital is a privileged moment for anthropological investigation of the relationship between the individual and society. Social rules are being experienced, tested and explained through a crisis that is apparently localized in the individual although the whole family is involved in various ways. In this paper a detailed ethnography of such crises in two families in a London Borough will illuminate two levels of analysis: (a) the cultural frameworks which give meaning to these events (b) the network mobilized by the families in an attempt to cope with the situation. It is my hypothesis that the following analysis of the patterns of coping exhibited by these two families will provide us with two models of the way in which crises of mental illness are dealt with. In the first family, a 'sociocentric' model of explanation is utilised and is associated with a segregated conjugal role relationship and an amplified movement of the nuclear family in relation to its network. In the second case, an 'egocentric' model is utilised in order to understand the crisis. This is associated with a joint role--relationship between husband and wife and a contracted movement in relation to the network. The hypothesis, exemplified in specific situations of social drama, stresses the movement of a social unit (the family), and indicates its dynamic character, the existence of different choices and distinct conceptions of the idea of the relationship between the person and his immediate social environment--the family. This paper is particularly significant since there exist very few detailed studies of urban contexts in Western societies containing data about the meaning of mental illness in the social environment in which it occurs.