The Crisis Model

Abstract

As social but not biological deviance, illness means deviation from normative standards, and becoming ill is being categorised — ‘labelled’ — accordingly. The elements of labelling, however, are not created by the ‘societal reaction’. Instead, so to speak, it acts as a catalyst helping to integrate existing elements into a pattern they would not otherwise form. Two classes of factors — the classificatory label and the behaviour being classified — are brought together. Neither the label alone nor the symptom represent anything but normal life. Their unification due to ‘societal reaction’ — often a crisis event — triggers off alternative role-taking accompanying ‘secondary deviation’. This, in its aetiological phase, is described in three stages: initially, the independent existence of a ubiquitous stereotype, on the one hand, and ‘normal’, although often strange or symptomatic behaviours, on the other hand; then, ‘public crisis’ allowing for the stereotype to be applied to the behaviour; and, finally, alternative role-taking accompanying retrospective reinterpretation of the person’s past together with internalisation of an illness-centred identity.