Living with uncertainty: A grounded theory of psychiatric stigma when seeking or maintaining employment
type: CreativeWork
description: The aim of this study was to investigate stigma for people who have experienced psychiatric disorder. Psychiatric stigma can exclude people both from economic roles and from participation in daily community life. Social and psychological reaction models of stigma adequately explain parts of this process but do not provide an integrated account that addresses the unique illness experience of psychiatric disorder. Nor do they provide an experiential account of psychiatric stigma that reflects its unique difference in a valued life situation - employment. The 31 Participants had all used psychiatric services and comprised 20 men and 11 women ranging in age from 20-59 years. There were 11 Maori, 18 Pakeha and 2 Pacific Islanders. At the time of this study they were all seeking or maintaining employment. Participants completed multiple open-ended interviews over a two year period. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using Glaser’s method of grounded theory. Constant comparison within and between stigmatising events found most of the variance in Participants’ accounts was captured in the core category of uncertainty (See Table 1). Uncertainty ruptured possibilities for health, identity, relationships and positive life trajectories. Consequently, Participants faced the task of managing a stigmatised identity by striving to resolve uncertainty. Yet the process of resolving uncertainty and negotiating a stigmatised identity had the ironic effect of creating uncertainty. This was theorised as a mutually interacting and self-generating process of creating-resolving uncertainty (see Table 2). Utilising a psychiatric service entailed changing from a person to a patient and this was accompanied by a change in social role and personal expectations. Staff monitored their patients for illness. This implicitly trained patients to self-monitor for signs of illness and embedded a medical language to achieve it. Any behaviour or expression was perceived as indicative of their m…
abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate stigma for people who have experienced psychiatric disorder. Psychiatric stigma can exclude people both from economic roles and from participation in daily community life. Social and psychological reaction models of stigma adequately explain parts of this process but do not provide an integrated account that addresses the unique illness experience of psychiatric disorder. Nor do they provide an experiential account of psychiatric stigma that reflects its unique difference in a valued life situation - employment. The 31 Participants had all used psychiatric services and comprised 20 men and 11 women ranging in age from 20-59 years. There were 11 Maori, 18 Pakeha and 2 Pacific Islanders. At the time of this study they were all seeking or maintaining employment. Participants completed multiple open-ended interviews over a two year period. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using Glaser’s method of grounded theory. Constant comparison within and between stigmatising events found most of the variance in Participants’ accounts was captured in the core category of uncertainty (See Table 1). Uncertainty ruptured possibilities for health, identity, relationships and positive life trajectories. Consequently, Participants faced the task of managing a stigmatised identity by striving to resolve uncertainty. Yet the process of resolving uncertainty and negotiating a stigmatised identity had the ironic effect of creating uncertainty. This was theorised as a mutually interacting and self-generating process of creating-resolving uncertainty (see Table 2). Utilising a psychiatric service entailed changing from a person to a patient and this was accompanied by a change in social role and personal expectations. Staff monitored their patients for illness. This implicitly trained patients to self-monitor for signs of illness and embedded a medical language to achieve it. Any behaviour or expression was perceived as indicative of their m…
author: Mackenzie, Hamish Cameron
license: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/630a7f1a-e318-4844-87b6-255552688756/download
date published: 2002
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:57:21Z
provider: University Waikato
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Waikato