250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Sick Role, Psychotherapy, Medicalization
Document Summary
30% between the ages of 15-50 are mentally ill. Stereotypes of madness" based on schizophrenia (although schizophrenia is rare) Adhd, anxiety, depression, bi-polar, substance abuse, phobias all illnesses. Mental illness more likely to be found in the lower classes. Psychotic behaviors losing touch with reality (lower class) Lower classes more likely to be treated with drugs, institutionalized. Only relationship medicine has with diagnostic manual is that is. Less about biological treatment and more about power. Problems with sick role: forced into treatment, not accessible for everyone (e. g. single parent with 3 children, chronic illness. Medicalization: taking everyday life issues and turning them into medical issues. Mental illness doesn"t actually exist medicine just made it up. Categorize diseases so that they can be controlled. Mental illness is a metaphor, which we have mistaken as a fact. Different cultures have different ideas of abnormality and normality: not universal, culturally bound. Rosenhan if it"s true, how we think of normality changes over time/culture.
