Journal of Health and Social Behavior http://hsb.sagepub.com/ The Social Construction of Illness : Key Insights and Policy Implications Peter Conrad and Kristin K. Barker Journal of Health and Social Behavior 2010 51: S67 DOI: 10.1177/0022146510383495 The online version of this article can be found at: http://hsb.sagepub.com/content/51/1_suppl/S67 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: American Sociological Association Additional services and information for Journal
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The social construction of mental illness Key Words * Career: The gradual change in people as a response to a label e.g. mental patient. * Learned Helplessness: learning how to be dependent. * Life-course model: suggests that the accumulation of social events experienced over a whole lifetime‚ not just individual important events‚ influence people and their mental state. * Presenting culture: a term used by Goffman to refer to how people like to portray themselves to others.
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What classifies one as exhibiting personality traits descriptive of “mental illness”? Is it defined through observation of activity deemed “abnormal” by those normal enough to create this criterion or standard? Or is it an indication of one’s ability to give and receive information‚ tied to their capability of thinking? The meaning of illness itself is generally used to identify one as being in a state of impaired function brought about by harmful foreign influences. The term is also one that is
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Assess the view that mental illness is a social construction. (20 marks) A mental illness is a state of mind which affects a person’s thinking‚ perceiving‚ emotion or judgement to the extent of which the person requires care or medical treatment in either their interests or interests of another person. However‚ the definition of mental illness has been criticised by social construction as one of the basic assumptions is that there is no is no such thing as a mental illness. Becker introduced the
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constructed because their definitions depend on who defines them and their relative position in the social structure‚ and because the definitions of mental illness vary across different social contexts and change over time. According to Mechanic (1967)‚ members of an individual’s primary social group are likely the first ones to diagnose mental illness – thus‚ the first “diagnosis” of mental illness often comes from non-professionals. Furthermore‚ in order to be initially diagnosed‚ the individual
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both essentialism and social-constructionism to construct an argument that posits social-constructionism as the most logical approach to understanding the forces of neuroplasticity and society. This paper asserts that while humans are “hard-wired” with certain characteristics‚ humanity can never full deconstruct themselves out of the technology and discourse they are born into without simultaneously reinforcing the system in which they seek to deconstruct. In the vein of social-constructionism‚ this
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to critically analyse the social construction of poverty by underlining the issues. In this essay I will attempt to explore how a social problem is ‘constructed’ and how poverty has been constructed into such a problem. It will explore how poverty is defined and how it has been considered as a deviation from the norm by discussing the distribution of power and how it influences the construction of a social problem‚ how cultural values play a part in the social construction process and finally I will
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Social Contructionism In chapter 2 of Surette‚ Social constructionism is a sociological theory of knowledge that consist how social objects of consciousness work in social contexts. There is often a debate about whether something is "real" or if it’s "merely" a social construct. For instance‚ If you believe social constructions aren’t real‚ then please take out all the bills in your wallet and pass them up to me. Money is an example of a social construction that plays an extremely important
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What is Corporate Social Responsibility and how could this influence the organizational behavior of “BreadTalk”? Corporate Social Responsibility refers to a company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship through their waste and pollution reduction processes‚ by contributing educational and social programs‚ and by earning adequate returns on the employed resources. CSR is also considered as a strategy to create‚ develop
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An investigation on social construction. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this work is to describe‚ analyse and understand what an anthropological understanding of social construction is and how it works. In order to do this‚ I’ll start by giving a general explanation of what a social construct is‚ after that I’ll bring three different concepts which I understand as social constructions. Specifically the three concepts will be gender‚ death and language using. To explain gender “Rites of Manhood:
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