This revised edition presents a biosocial model for understanding mental disorders, which integrates recent sociological frameworks with current research in the epidemiology of mental disorders and on biological features of mental disorders. It shows the many ways in which macrosocial factors - such as stratification, integration and culture - and microsocial factors - such as self-concept formation, socialization and imitation - influence the distribution of mental disorders throughout the population, in combination with psychological and biological factors. The author adopts an epistemological point of view, comparing and contrasting various frameworks for comprehending bizarre forms of deviance that are labelled as mental disorders. He introduces new data and frameworks concerning the process of social stratification and mental disorders, the rapid dissemination of somatoform disorders, mental disorders in the modern world, and the "insane" society. Original data from classic research studies in the field are introduced and discussed to illustrate the application of frameworks to the problem of bizarre deviance. Carefully selected first-person accounts of the experience of bizarre deviance add poignancy to the presentation, along with examples of official diagnostic criteria.