SOSA 2502 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Biomedical Model, Moral Treatment
6 Dec 2016
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Guest lecturer: jim stolzman mental illness viewed sociologically. Biomedical model a way of seeing but also not seeing blocks out things sociologists are attune to. Mental illnesses are not just a biological phenomenon. All cultures recognize that there are individual that are slightly different in our culture we focus on mind-body differences. Before 18th c. , the prevailing view was demonology (possessed by evil spirits) and patients were treated terribly. One would fail to appreciate that the very conception of mental troubles as (cid:862)illnesses(cid:863) is a particular social construction. Behaviours reinterpreted by staff to fit diagnosis (master status becomes mental patient and everything interpreted in this light) Critics missed the point what diagnosis is occurs in a particular context. Origin in mental illness: soldiers in wwii combat when they suffer shell shock (mental breakdown) they were sometimes treated immediately in field unit or were moved into hospitals.
