SOC 2101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: David Rosenhan, Mental Disorder

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2101
• Professor: Louise Chartrand

Document Summary

The sociological model of mental illness questions each of these assumptions. Perhaps most important, sociologist argue definitions of mental illness, like the definitions of physical illness and disability reflect subjective social judgement more than objective scientific measurements of biological problems. Mental illness reflects a particular social setting as well as individual behaviour or biology. Mentally ill person may experience improvement regardless of treatment. 8 research her presented themselves to 12 mental hospitals and complained of hearing voices. Took 19 days to their release in remission. Afterward, rosenhan agreed to send other pseudo patient to another hospital. 42% were identified as being fake patients when rosenhan did not send any. The problem with diagnosis are particularly acute when therapist and patient don"t share the same cultural background. With the rise of immigration, doctors increasingly must diagnose and treat patient whose symptoms do not appear in western textbooks. For example, whereas canadian sometimes fear that their bodies will embarrass them,