Meaning Of Illness Essay

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Professional Articles -- The Social Meaning of Illness

The article that I choose to use for this assignment was "The Measurement of Meaning in Illness" by Betsy L. Fife. I was assigned chapter 5, which dealt with the social meaning of illness. The chapter explored the idea of illness as a form of social control and considers the various models of illness and how they have changed over time.

The Sociological model of illness refers to the subjective judgment regarding the meaning of the condition or behavior. It defines illness by defining its abnormal and undesirable affects. Illness is also shown to be a social construction, or something that exists in the world because we have defined it as existing rather than it being an objective condition. This means that labeling a condition an illness will reflect the perceived undesirable affects of that condition. Therefor, when we label a person as ill, we are labeling them as undesirable. Illness is defined in terms of social norms which are expectations within a given culture regarding proper behavior or appearance. From the sociological standpoint, illness is a form of deviance. Deviance refers to the behaviors or conditions that socially powerful persons within the culture perceive either accurately or inaccurately as immoral or as violating social norms.. Violations of social norms result in the enforcement of negative social sanctions, or any form of punishment from ridicule to execution. These social sanctions are enforced by social control agents such as parents, police, doctors and teachers.

Over time there were several theories that were developed to help explain illness. Modern theories of the causes of illness are divided into either personalistic theories or naturalistic theories. Personalistic theories of illness are derived from thoughts that an illness occurs when a god, witch, spirit or other supernatural power lashes out at an individual either deservedly or maliciously. Naturalistic theories of illness are derived from the idea that an illness occurs when natural forces such as heat, cold, dampness, or wind upset the bodies natural equilibrium. Both theories assert that ill persons cause their illness themselves whether by displeasing the gods or by exposing themselves to the harmful natural elements. Also, both define ill persons as less worthy whether as sinners or as fools. In the nineteenth century, scientific explanations became more prevalent and people thought that illness occurred when biological forces combined with biological susceptibility. Today it is suggested that stress, personal lifestyle and personality can increase a persons susceptibility to illness.

The Medical model of illness is used in the medical world to declare something an illness. According to the medical model an illness is a deviation from normal, specific and universal, caused by unique biological factors, analogous to the breakdown of a machine and defined and treated medically through neutral scientific processes. This model encourages doctors to search for the source of problems within the individuals body rather than within the broader social environment. This model also reinforces the social power of medicine.

The article that I choose relates to this information because it examines the concept of the meaning of illness relative to life threatening illnesses and how the meaning of illness affects the patients coping behavior. The author uses previous qualitative studies that have provided empirical evidence of the importance of meaning by describing its role in adaptation the author uses the relationship between negative life events to try and create a scale that determines the relationship of other variables to be significant to negative life events. The author defines the meaning as "primarily a cognitive phenomenon that arises in response to specific situations and events, and it is a central factor in the process of social adjustment to everyday existence." The authors tries to establish...

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