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The social sciences have traditionally made many attempts to understand the insane by analysis of the insane's complex, metaphorical use of language. Yet, only recently has the language of insanity's signifier (i.e., mental health professionals and the “sane” populace) been considered also as worthy grist for the analytical mill. Many have argued (e.g., Szasz 1974) that this language has served solely to label and alienate the insane.
Most of this recent historical work concerning the insane may best be characterized as “anti-psychiatric” in its conclusions. Mental health professionals are portrayed as wolves in sheep's clothing, exacerbating the very problems that they claim to be ameliorating. Psychoanalysts are included in this vision as contributing to a mythical oppression (in another guise) of their patients. However, such a view may be an oversimplification. Recently, psychiatrists, responding to their opponents have pointed to the variety of functional, social, historical, and political implications of a community that labels the insane in order to construe their world in a more consistent, meaningful way.
From this perspective insanity must be understood as a multifaceted social dialogue. Thus, in order to understand how the insane are construed we must not narrow our vision only to the thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms of the insane. Rather, we must also ask, how does language attempt to signify the insane, and what purpose might this serve? Some aspects of this question will be addressed here by examining the language of the signifier (the “sane”) in a social-historical context. These metaphorical allusions to insanity may be thought of as related to (at times anticipating) the theories, attitudes, beliefs, and prejudices that were held at the same