The Sick Role Essay

The medical view of health, ‘being without disease or illness’ is purely focused on the biological functions of a disease or illness and does not consider mental or social aspects of the individual’s disease or illness. The medical definition has a negative concept of health because it suggests that having health is normal and as long as you are without a disease or illness you will be healthy.

Illness is defined as a disease of the body or mind; poor health; sickness. Not only is it a disease, but it’s also evil and wickedness. Let’s travel through Shakespeare’s Macbeth to see how Shakespeare proves this to be true. While Macbeth’s power expands, his physical illness shows his evilness. Lady Macbeth’s increasing physical illness represents her growing guilt. As evil and guilt appear more and more, it makes clear the decrease in mental stability. By examining illness, one can determine that physical illness is a metaphor for the illness of their minds.

suffering from some type of illnesses. I will explore these two researchers’ theories and discuss

The Strengths and Limitations of the Biological Model of Abnormality This model uses physical illness as a model for psychological disorder, suggesting that like physical illness, mental illness has an underlying bodily cause. It proposes that genetic, organic or chemical disorders cause metal illnesses which give rise to behavioural and psychological problems. Thus, abnormality has physical causes such as brain dysfunction (neurological), biochemical imbalances, infections or genetics and so can only be cured through medical treatments. Therefore it implies that abnormality results from properly

The sick role is the actions and attitudes that society expects from someone who is ill. Furthermore, the roles entails the actions as well as, attitudes that a person might expect from other members of society. Indeed, being ill is a form of deviance as it violates the norms of health and productivity. A vital part of the sick role is you are exempted from your regular responsibilities, however, you are now responsible for seeking medical care and to recuperate. For my artifact, I chose a pamphlet from the Student Health Center of USD. Specifically, the pamphlet addresses how to care for your cold and includes the sections: Method of Spreading, Symptoms, When to Seek Help, Self- Help Tips and Treating your URI Symptoms. The treating your symptoms

Mental illness is a disorder that is considered to be a type of interruption in a person’s emotions, thoughts, or behavior. Mental illness signifies to a wide variety of disorders which can range from mild distress to impairing a person’s ability to function in daily life. Signs and symptoms of mental illness can vary, depending on the particular disorder, circumstances and other factors. Whether a behavior is considered normal or abnormal varies on the person’s situation surrounding their behavior. Throughout history there’ve been three overall beliefs for the causes of mental illness. These three theories are known as supernatural, somatogenic, and psychogenic. Each one of these stands for how one is viewed when seen as having a mental illness.

When the human body falls ill will disease, sickness, or an injury a person’s automatic response is to seek out a professional to uncover the root of the problem to then treat the said illness. A sick body will show physical symptoms of distress when trying to restore its homeostasis, but what if the mind, not the body, is ill? Recovering from a broken bone would simply call for a cast and time to allow the body to heal itself. Now instead of a broken bone, imagine a person has traumatizing daily nightmares, physical weakness, the loss of appetite and even energy. To treat said problems one must first realize this is a mental illness. These symptoms will be diagnosed as Ghost Sickness, which is a type of mental illness called a culture bound syndrome. This illness is said to be culturally bound because, instead of like most mental illnesses that can be generalized to anyone around the world, it only affects individuals found in a specific culture and/or geographic location.

Holmes properly uses the term illness when recommending a course of spiritual mind treatment; but it would be a mistake to think that every condition can be treated in this way. Not every condition that requires treatment is an

There are several models of abnormality in use today (Comer, 2009) lists “The Biological Model…”, “The Psychodynamic Model…”, The Behavioral Model…”, The Cognitive Model…”, The Humanistic-Existential Model…”, The Sociocultural Model…” (p.33). The biggest contrasts would be the Biological model, and the other models. Comparing the biological model, and the cognitive model will highlight those differences.

The phenomenology of illness and disease explains on how it is like to have a disease or illness. Getting diagnosed with a disorder or disease can be very confusing and stressful. Getting all the information needed to be able to understand your diagnosis can help overcome stress and clear all confusion from your mind. Maintaining a healthy diet and healthy mind will help understanding your body and keep it from illnesses.

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).

The spiritual significance of illness and suffering is a topic Christians continue to grapple with, as Larchet points out in The Theology of Illness. Scripture offers a wealth of wisdom and cues for understanding illness, health, and healing from a Christian perspective. Larchet analyzes the various and often contradictory Christian positions on health and illness, revealing how attitudes have shifted over time and with changes in medical technology, practice, and ethics. For example, St. Barsanuphius presents a comprehensive analysis of the spiritual significance of illness and suffering. One view holds that illness signifies a lack of faith; another presents illness in terms of a person who is offered the opportunity to develop a stronger faith, or whose faith is being put to a test like the story of Job. Ultimately, the latter remains the most helpful way to approach illness and healing from a Christian perspective. The essence of Christian health care is that, "Healing itself, while resulting from natural processes, actually comes from God," (Larchet 116).

Townsend and Davidson (1988) also suggested that the term health is derived from the word “whole”, which is a recipient of the healing process. Therefore, an attempt to heal or cure in medical field literally means, to make whole or restore health. It is this idea that influences medicine to adopt a mechanistic approach towards disease management thereby obscuring the understanding of health in human context of well-being, which advocates for alternative or complementary approaches. This viewpoint also reflects in some definitions and the medical model discussed above. The criticisms of the medical by Illich (1974) is that the medical view only deals with the cause of disease or illness rather than the external factors affecting the person’s health. Within different sections of medicine, for example the mental health department, there are marked differences when explaining the origin of illness, disease and treatments.

In terms of illness being “deviant,” the concept of medicalization has become important in the study of deviance when looking at the debates surrounding the “sick world” and the insanity defense. Some people try to use the

This essay is to evaluate what your role, responsibilities and boundaries as a teacher would be in terms of the teaching/training cycle.