The Sociology Of Health And Mental Illness - 3181 Words

ï ¿ ¼John Goulder (13005053) MBBS SSC Year 2: Library Project Dissertation Supervisor: Professor Paul Higgs Submitted: Tuesday, 13 January 2015 A Tale of Two Asylums: Reviewing the context and influences of two theorists, Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman, on the sociology of health and mental illness. Word count: 3,132 John Goulder! 1 ï ¿ ¼Introduction: Mental Health as Disparate Social Object Antipsychiatry was as much a cultural phenomenon as an academic or institutional one. Whilst the work of Laing (1960) and Szasz (1960) can be rooted in the Fruedo-Marxist ‘methodological individualism’ of critical theory (Rogers Pilgrim, 2010: 14), or even a broader constructionist critique of medical truth, it just as easily lends itself to a more limited historicist Libertarian reading: mental illness as socio-political deviance within an encroaching state (Sumner, 1994). Within this interface must be located the panoply of ‘iconographic’ representation (Shorter, 1997: 273) within wider mass-culture: Sumner cites the example of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — as salacious and sensational as it may be — which became, for a generation, a precipitation of populist anti-sentiment towards psychiatric institutions and their operative physicians. It is clear then that the dialectic of mind and its healer transcends theor etical partitions, spans academic disciplines, and crosses the great divide to take up its place within the popular consciousness. Considering this, and alsoShow MoreRelatedSociology and Healthcare Essays1578 Words   |  7 PagesSociology and Healthcare Health-care is a sociological institution within the American Culture. Health-care has many different aspects that pertain to patients, care givers and governmental approach to supply healthcare to all citizens. 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