Mental Health Reaction Paper

Conrad & Schneider (1980), as quoted in "Medical Sociology" point out that "in light of the socially constructed nature of both crime and illness, it should not be surprising to find that there has been a fluidity or drift between crime deviations and illness deviations" (Conrad and Schneider, 1980, p. 32 listed). This gives rise to the practice (or perhaps trend) of physicians and researchers labeling certain deviances as physical disorders, ones that can, conceivably, therefore be treated as a medical problem. Such medicalization of deviance then leaves two primary courses of investigation. Is the medical problem "physical" (caused by glands, chemicals or genetics) or is it "mental" (attributed to behavioral patterns)?

One weakness of the medicalization concept is that it makes the primary assumption that there must be a root cause for the particular deviance, such as "he drinks because," or "he kills because." Another weakness with the theory, and one which must always be remembered, is that the very term "deviance" is, at best, a valueless word, one that requires a great deal of caution when using, since there have never been clear definitions of what is "normal" and without a definition of "normal" then a "deviation from normal" is impossible to discern. Often research shows that there is no evidence to categorize certain disorders as a "mental disease" and should be regarded as sociological phenomena

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Category: Psychology - M