An Individual With A Mental Disorder

Ever since the concept of mental illness became more mainstream, it has become a widely controversial topic. Based on what has been seen in society, people who are involved with mental disorders are often dehumanized in some way.

This deals with confrontation of the illness and how they adapt, reveal and cope with the illness. With life threatening illnesses, it impacts the individual's viewpoint on life and in most cases causes the individual to only see the illness as their future. In other cases, people view the illness as a way to reform their identity and become the person they would like to be. People adapt to an illness based upon society’s definition of how it should be confronted and dealt with. The social construction of an illness is similar to the social construction of medical knowledge because it is the society’s take on the information. The social construction of medical knowledge is when the medical field gives information such as women should not drink when pregnant for it can affect their baby and in turn society contributes to this belief. For example, people tell women that they shouldn’t exercise to much or do anything that could somewhat put the mother in harm. This is because they do not want anything to affect the baby in her stomach. This is social construction of medical knowledge because it is the medical information and beliefs, stretched to society’s

In the sociology of medicine Parson (1951) regarded medicine as functional in social terms. By tackling the person’s problems in medical terms the tendency towards deviance that was represented by ill health could be safely directed, until they could return to their normal self. (Lawrence 1994: p 64-65: BMJ 2004: Parson cited in Gabe, Bury & Elston 2006, p 127).

Furthermore, tremendous advances have been made in the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses in the recent decades. Nowadays, someone with a mental illness is treated with respect, just like every other person, because, in fact, everyone is equal. Society’s goals today are to treat and support the mentally ill individuals enough so they can live in

Although, researchers assume to a large extent, that the diagnosis worsens mental illness of those that are presumably mentally ill, the qualification aids to repair the lives of those individuals by coping with their illness, embracing their illness , and by protecting

In this essay, I intend to look into the power of the medical model in relation to people with physical and mental disability. I will look at the impact of medicalization on people with medical impairment as well as some key concepts in medical sociology (Gabe, J. and Elston, M. A.2004). I will then compare the medical model with the social model and consider the effect they have on professionalism and dependency and I will discuss the binaries in the medical and social model plus the political, cultural and economic impact in the society. I will discuss the limitations, policy, guidelines and legislations and how the medical model of disability can contribute to social exclusion, segregation and discrimination, and then look at how this depersonalize and deinstitutionalize people’s individuality and the impact on person-centred care, the infringement of people’s right on issues of confidentiality and autonomy. I explore the challenges of disability and access and the reconceptualising role of the ‘Medical Model’ in issues of disability and rehabilitation. In health sciences, good medical and clinical practices are based on moral and logical thinking. Although the medical model is learned by doctors in their original training and in theory, then brought and adapted to the field of mental health by psychiatrists that inform both mental

My boyfriend Danny is a twenty-two year old student who was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. His experience took a toll on his mental well-being and his loved ones. His interaction with health care providers and the system by whole can be thought of in a sociological way using examples of readings by Sarah Nettleton, Pat and Hugh Armstrong, Ulli Diemer, Michael Oldani, Talcott Parsons, and Erving Goffman. By touching on topics such as uncertainty, the private versus the public sectors of health care, pharmaceutical companies, the sick role, and impression management, we can further contextualize Danny’s condition in its social premise.

The social model of mental illness emphasizes the social environment and the roles people play. Thomas Scheff maintains that people diagnosed as mentally ill are victims of the status quo, guilty of often unnamed violations of social norms; thus the label "mental illness" can be used as an instrument of social control. I agree with Scheff's analysis, and I strongly concur with the view Thomas Szasz takes on the notion of mental illness. Szasz argues that much of what we call "mental illness" is a myth; it is not an illness, but simply "problems in living", troubles caused by conflicting personal needs, opinions, social aspirations, values, and so forth (Szasz 13). It thus follows that the widely

Stigma has been said to be “a feeling of being negatively differentiated owing to a particular condition, group membership or state in life”(Arboleda-Florez & Stuart, 2012, p. 458). There are typically two types of mental illness stigma that are discussed. Public stigma, also known as societal stigma, is the stigma associated with the prejudicial attitudes the public holds towards those people who suffer from mental illness (Arboleda-Florez & Stuart, 2012; Corrigan, Markowitz, Watson, Rowan & Kubiak, 2003). Self-stigma, also known as internalized stigma, is the loss of self-esteem, withdrawal, and personal shame that some with mental illness will experience. Self-stigma is usually developed when those who suffer from mental illness associate the negative stereotypes the public holds with themselves (Chronister, Chou, & Lieo, 2013; Corrigan et al., 2003).

individuals “lacking markers of social identity” creates the perception that individuals with mental illness are inferior, and not important. This could create a public view that mental ill individuals are failures. Additionally, mentally ill individuals may come to acquire these self-defeating views over time. This could create a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, in which those with a mental illness think they are supposed to be a failure, and thus give up on themselves and their goals. Research conducted by Wilson et al.

One in every seventeen people in America suffers from a mental disorder. These disorders inhibit the afflicted person from functioning properly and coping normally with daily life. Many afflicted with a psychological disorder do not exhibit obvious symptoms, as medical advancements have made it possible for these disorders to be suppressed or even nonexistent. Today, however, harsh stigmas exist that unfairly categorize those with a mental illness as violent, unfriendly, and abnormal. The media and federal government are culprits in fabricating the unrealistic depictions of mental disability that define the portrayal of those who are mentally or psychologically disadvantaged.

We can define medicalization as the process by which human conditions and behaviors come to be treated as medical concerns or problems. Peter Conrad, a well-respected sociologist, states that “phenomena do not necessarily inhere in the phenomena themselves, but develop through interaction in a social context”. Conrad’s statement further strengthens the argument that there is a distinct separation between the disease (biological condition) one suffers and the illness (social meaning of the condition) that society labels them with. The way society defines and reacts to human conditions and illnesses is constructed by the social systems present at that moment in history. Presumed experts of the time deem what is human “normality” or “abnormality”

Illness and health concerns are universal in human life, present in all societies. Each group collectively organizes itself - through material means, thought and cultural elements - to understand and develop techniques in response to experiences, or episodes of illness and misfortune, whether individual or collective. For this purpose, each and every society develops particular knowledge, practices and institutions, which can be called a health care system (1).

The conceptualisation of medicine as an institution of societal control was first theorised by Parsons (1951), and from this stemmed the notion of the deviant termed illness in which the “sick role” was a legitimised condition. The societal reaction and perspective was deemed a pillar of the emerging social construction of disease and conception of the formalised medical model of disease. Concerns surrounding medicalisation fundamentally stem from the fusion of social and medical concerns wherein the lines between the two are gradually blurred and the the social consequences of the proliferation of disease diagnosis that results from such ambiguities of the social medical model.

The treatment of physical and mental problems has undergone a rapid change in the past few decades. An increasing number of bodily and behavioural symptoms now have a recognised medical diagnosis and corresponding treatment. Sociologists have attributed these changes to the process of medicalization, wherein “non-medical problems come to be defined and treated as if they were medical issues” (McLennan, McManus & Spoonley 2009: 271). Medicalization is an ongoing, gradual process which occurs through the social construction of new diseases by groups such as health professionals (Conrad 2007: 4). It can be argued that medicalization is an active and passive process by which diseases are constructed in an attempt to find treatments for patients; and that diseases can be ‘socially’ constructed as well as ‘corporately’ constructed by companies to create a profitable market of consumers. At the micro level of society, medicalization in the Western world has been influenced by liberal notions of individualization which has extended to some parts of the health sector. At the macro level, medicalization has been buoyed by the process of the professionalization, expansion of state monopoly over the health profession and religious and political social movements. Although some academics argue that the medicalization of society is less significant than the process of “de-medicalization”, there is clear evidence that the process of medicalization is intensifying and outstripping the rate