Compare Two Sociological Perspectives On Health

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Compare Two Sociological Perspectives On Health

Compare and contrast two sociological perspectives on health
I have chosen to compare the postmodern perspective on health and the biomedical model. The biomedical model view of the body is mechanistic. This point was argued by Engels, who said that the body was a machine and the breakdown of this machine was disease. he also beleived that the the doctor was the only one who could fix the machine. this point leads to many biomedical views. Firstly, it shows the way that doctors view the body as a set of individual parts, diagnose and treat them as such. This non-holistic view of the body is often criticised because it fails to cnsider the person as a whole and entire building. Secondly it shows the importance of the doctor in the biomedical model. Doctors have and maintain power in the biomedical model. They have all of the information and knowledge and therefore all the power. This can mean that the patient gives total control of their body to the doctor.This power ratio is explored by postmodernists who are interested in how one perspctive gains so much power and influence. Foucault (1963) said that the choice of words and phrases can effect the way people think. So doctors who have more influence and respect can gain power over their patients bodies'. This use of language to affect thinking is called discourse to postmodernists.
A study by peter bellamy (1990) of workers in a pottery factory and the way they took time off work. The study concluded that doctors used their status to medicalise problems such as morning sickness to allow the workers paid time off work. Although to the workers this may seem positive this medicalisation of problems that used to be seen as natural has been criticised. Anne Oakely in her study entitled Women, Medicine and Health (1993) found that child birth is one of the processes that has been turned from a natural process to a medical problem, for example the way women are encouraged to give birth in hospital. Illich (1990) even went as to say that themedical proffesion (including pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment suppliers) have a vested interest in illness so they create illnesses which have to be treated by doctors and drugs etc. this means conditions that used to be seen as natural, such as dying or unhappiness have now undergone a social iatrogenesis (doctor caused illness) whereby people cannot handle the...

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