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A Spectrum of Silence and the Single Storyteller: Stigma, Sex, and Mental Illness among the Latter-day Saints

Crawford, Rebekah Perkins
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5508-0293
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1532978500917072

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Communication Studies (Communication).
This dissertation explores communication about mental illness and other sources of emotional distress inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though often untrained, religious leaders are the most sought-after source of support for mental illness and emotional distress in the United States. I used interviews, autoethnography, participant observation, and the analysis of cultural documents to gather and analyze discourses which illuminated how several local LDS communities understood mental illness and other forms of emotional distress. I interviewed thirteen Mormon bishops and ten professional mental health care providers who worked with LDS dominant populations about their experiences providing care for members in distress. Three main questions guided my research: What narratives do Latter-day Saints use to make sense of mental illness and other forms of trouble and how does this sensemaking enable or constrain emotional wellness? How does the LDS culture’s habitus foster inclusion or stigmatize difference? How does silence around stigmatized issues like mental illness, human sexuality, and gendered violence enable or constrain religious leaders’ and communities’ ability to appropriately make sense of and respond to trouble? I present my analysis in chapters four, five, six, and seven. In chapter four I outline the spectrum of silence inside LDS communities and situate mental illness along it. I argue that overly programmed life scripts which I term brittle narratives lead some members to stigmatize trouble, have unrealistic life expectations, live by absolutes, and strive for perfection. In chapter five I discuss LDS discourses about human sexuality which I describe as existing in a narrative desert, a discursive landscape that only partially tells a dominant story and uses institutional and social power to police and silence counternarratives. In chapter six I discuss discourses about sexual violence which fall under a category I named narrative vacuums. Narrative vacuums happen when profound silence is the dominant narrative and a discursive system perpetuates that silence by hijacking, redirecting, or discrediting alternative meanings. In chapter seven I articulate the tactics various single storytellers have used to successfully introduce a counternarrative into these discursive systems dominated by the master narrative. I conclude by discussing totalizing narratives as the mechanism by which totalizing institutions reassert their boundaries and manage their power. I argue that without a discursive system where multiple stories are strong enough to exist in tension with each other there is a dearth of meanings. The scarce meanings allowed by single-story systems prevent care givers from always responding appropriately to member’s distress. In chapter 8 I discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this study.
Lynn Harter, PhD (Committee Chair)
William Rawlins, PhD (Committee Member)
Brittany Peterson, PhD (Committee Member)
Joseph Bianco, PhD (Committee Member)
452 p.
Clergy; Communication; Counseling Psychology; Ethics; Gender Studies; Glbt Studies; Health; Mental Health; Organization Theory; Pastoral Counseling; Psychotherapy; Public Health; Religion; Religious Congregations; Rhetoric; Social Research; Spirituality; Womens Studies
Mental health; human sexuality; religious leaders; professional providers; LDS Church; brittle narrative; narrative desert; narrative vacuum; spectrum of silence; pornography; LGBTQ identity; sexual violence; consent; Christian communities

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Crawford, R. P. (2018). A Spectrum of Silence and the Single Storyteller: Stigma, Sex, and Mental Illness among the Latter-day Saints [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1532978500917072

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Crawford, Rebekah. A Spectrum of Silence and the Single Storyteller: Stigma, Sex, and Mental Illness among the Latter-day Saints. 2018. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1532978500917072.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Crawford, Rebekah. "A Spectrum of Silence and the Single Storyteller: Stigma, Sex, and Mental Illness among the Latter-day Saints." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1532978500917072

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1532978500917072
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© 2018, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.