Examine the ways in which sociological accounts have sought to challenge the medical model of mental illness.?

Question

Can some one help me write a 2,000 word essay on this please!

Answer 1

I'm afraid there's not an awful lot I know about this subject, still, here's what I can say.

The potential problem with a term such as mental illness is that turns a persons actions into simply a biochemical phenomenon to its ibservers, diverting their attention from other causes. Sometimes these causes might be socially-economically bound. For example, some have argued that certain sorts of depression might be the result of a modern society in which the alienation of lanour (to use Marx's phrase) makes people feel incapable of finding purpose in their everyday lives. I don't believe that's true, but I think it's a handy example.

Other examples might be the diagnoses of 'hysteria' in middle-class victorian women which, in some accounts, was actually the result of the oppressive lifestyle and gendered politics in which they lived. Again, I can't tell you if that's true or untrue, as I'm not an expert in the field.

So, in essence, sociological accounts of the causes of exceptional emotional disturbance - that is, attempts to explain disturbance in temrs of faulty or problematic social structures - challenge a model of mental illness that proposes the matter is simply of chemical imbalance and so forth.

Basically, that's what your essay will be about.

Look into 'hysteria' and 'depression/anomie' especially, not least the alleged rise of hysteria in the late 19th century and rise of depression in the 20th century. A fictional piece to look at might be 'The Yellow Wallpaper', written in 1891, that tackles the way that the responses of women to 19th century sexual order were (arguably) dismissed as the result of insanity.

It's only 6000 words, and you can find it on Project Gutenberg, here: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1952

Answer 2

What, like lend you a pen?

Look at what kind of people get listed as mentally ill in different cultures at different times - ie, witches, Jews, black immigrants...

Read R D Laing

Answer 3

no