The Study Of Self-Labeling And Coping Strategies Of Persons With Schizophrenia

Many daily rehabilitation centers,"Sunshine Garden", has been established in Shanghai since Sept.2009and provide rehabilitation training for persons with schizophrenia who had been discharged from mental hospitals and were in out-patient service so that they could better recover from the impairment caused by schizophrenia and live a better life. Despite this, persons with schizophrenia label themselves as schizophrenia in their interactive situations, which lead to self-stigma that is not good for the rehabilitation. As a result, the paper was based on7persons with schizophrenia in a Sunshine Garden, Jiyang, Shanghai. In-depth interview, observation and secondary sources were the research methods and symbolic interactionism is the theoretical framework for analyzing the self-labels, the factors in interactive situations that trigger self-labeling, the negative effects of self-labeling and what their coping strategies are when they are subjected to the negative effects. What’s more, the paper is prefaced with the survival conditions of the objects.Based on the content of this research above, the author found that self-labeling can lead to self-stigma through self-concurrence of the stereotype of schizophrenia, that the objects identify with the spoiled identity of persons with schizophrenia when self-labeling because of being deprived of role-identities and the identity of persons with schizophrenia becomes the salient negative one, that the self-identity of persons with schizophrenia is contextually constructed, for social representatives embedded in situations come into play in the form of symbols which trigger self-labeling, and that the coping strategies of persons with schizophrenia are skills of impression management----they make positive impressions on others with protective strategies and assertive strategies, at the same time they make negative impressions by disclosing their identities as a person with schizophrenia. In the end, the suggestions are the spatial justice of daily rehabilitation centers, the intensification of education and training of mental health social work, the cultural reconstruction on the images of persons with schizophrenia, re-entrusting role-identities and capacity building.