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Social Representations of Psychological Problems: Contents and Transformations

This article reports the results from a study of social representations of psychological problems.¹ Knowledge of these representations is important because of their role in understanding both the acceptance and effectiveness of psychological help. The research was conducted in a low socio-economic area of Santiago, Chile. Discrepancies have been found between the social representations of psychological problems held by professionals and those held by community members in such settings. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used, gathering data from 15 individual interviews, two group interviews, and a questionnaire survey using open-ended questions on a sample of 203 individuals. Information provided by the mass media was also analyzed. The results obtained refer to social representations of psychological problems, problems requiring psychological treatment, labeling of psychological problems and sources of influence in the maintenance or transformation of these representations. Analysis of the main sources of influence and comparison between individuals with and without experience regarding psychological help lead to the conclusion that this social representation is undergoing a change, in that its contents are evolving from more pathological elements to more everyday problems.