Topic 5 - Illness as a Social Construction

Question 1

What are the major tenets of Parson’s sick role?

Answer 1

• sick person is not responsible for illness
• obliged to seek competent help
• exempted from duties
• obliged to follow medical prescription
• pressured to get well

Question 2

What are some of the critiques of the sick role theory?

Answer 2

• better suited to acute v. chronic
• describes the patient role, not necessarily the sick role
• we actually do blame people sometimes for being sick

Question 3

Explain the Medical Model.

Answer 3

• deviation from normal
• specific and universal
• caused by unique biological forces
• analogous to the breakdown of a machine
• defined and treated through a neutral, scientific process

Question 4

Explain the Sociological Model

Answer 4

• illness is a social construction
• refers to biological, social, and psychological conditions defined as undesirable
• it exists because we define it as existing

Question 5

Explain Peter Conrad’s view of medicalization.

Answer 5

• what is labeled as an illness changes over time and space
• medicalization: the process through a condition/behavior becomes defines as an illness and requires a medical solution