The Consequences Of Labeling Practices

I have been reading and thinking about Paul Flannagan's article in the Explorations ejournal of Narrative Practices entitled "Making Molehills Into Mountains: Adult Responses To Child Sexuality and Behavior" and he describes the consequences of labeling practices. What does it mean that a person has been labled a sex offender? What does it mean that a person has been labeled a felon? What implications does this have for a person's life if the person is under 16, under 12, under 9 years of age?

These labels carry the power of identity which have tremendous influentional power for self concept and social status.

How do we as therapists work with these labeling practices in regards to the labelers, the target of such labels, and the audiences of such labeling activities?

I met with a young man yesterday who is 25 who has been carrying the label of felon for over 5 years now. He talked about how stigmatizing and marginalizing such labels are when he seeks employment, and is getting to know people better who he would like to befriend.

I was thinking about how to help him with this huge obstacle and barrier to any kind of social acceptance and the development of positive social status.

The effort to help will occur at 4 levels:

How does a person manage one's own feelings and thoughts and behavior in the face of implied societal expectations when one is so categorized?

What and how are the criteria developed and applied in an "expert" way to certain individuals by other certain individuals. Who has the power to define "reality" in this powerful way?

What is the cultural response to such labeling activity? How does the collective treat the individual so labeled and reinforce or undermine the process in the smaller community?

What kind of a society stigmatizes and excludes people in these ways in order to protect itself from actual or imagined threats to its safety and well being?

Often individuals and families and communities are sacrificed in dysfunctional and destructive ways to what the majority believes is in its own interest. This stigmatizing and eliminationist social behavior is seen as positive in promoting societal safety and ordiliness but at a certain point this stigmatizing and eliminationist behavior may become counter-productive.