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A sociological field that studies psychiatry as a medical and social institution, examining its diagnostic frameworks, treatment practices, professional boundaries, and role in social control. It investigates how psychiatric categories evolve, how they are applied differentially across race, class, and gender, how psychiatric authority is maintained, and how patients experience and resist psychiatric labeling. The sociology of psychiatry draws on labeling theory, medical sociology, and critical disability studies to understand mental health as both a biological and a social phenomenon.
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