Stop Being the Designated Patient

There's a technical phrase in psychology that's making its way into the public domain recently. It's "designated patient." The designated patient is a person who gets labeled as "mentally ill" by others despite any objective signs or symptoms. While the phrase applies generally to social units, it's appearing most often within the family, where family members say that one of their own "has the problems" in order to cover up or find excuses for deeper, verifiable problems within other family members or the family dynamic as a whole.

As sociologist Martha Beck says, "a designated patient carries the group's dysfunction. A designated issue performs the same service for an individual, dominating our psyches so that other troubles can go unnoticed." In other words, the designated patient is a scapegoat. A way for those with actual problems (mental illness, alcoholism, mood disorders) to deflect the focus from them onto someone else; someone else who is often the only healthy one in the whole scenario.

While this might sound like an easy out ("Don't point the finger at me! I'm the designated patient!"), it is a real phenomenon and can get in the way of a social unit working out its issues and arriving at harmony. Martha offers a great synopsis of the turmoil a designated patient can suffer, as well as some good ways to deal with it.

Of course, slipping out of the designated spot can take time. But if you think you're in it, helping you get out, and not others keeping you in, is where you need the conversation to head.

Photo via Flickr.com.