Well done for making it through the first virtual seminar... I've been really impressed by your enthusiasm and your willingness to explore taken for granted ideas about health and illness. Many of the examples you posted showed how ‘illness’ is socially constructed and experienced in different social settings (e.g. HIV, post traumatic stress disorder or depression). SOME of the examples still emphasised a biomedical or epidemiological perspective. However, MOST challenged a fixed, biomedical view of the world and encouraged us to think about how patients, families, carers, professionals and people in society generally relate to ideas of ‘health’, ‘illness’ and ‘disease’. For instance, thinking about dementia and multiple sclerosis from a sociological perspective highlighted how patients’ understand and accommodate illness in their lives, reshaping their own identity and their relationships with family and friends.
Two sociological concepts featured in the seminar. Firstly the ‘sick role’ (cf Talcott Parsons) and the way in which people experiencing e.g. dementia might have their illness legitimated by health professionals, allowing them to be relieved of their usual social roles. Secondly, ‘stigma’ and the process of ‘stigmatisation’ (cf Graham Scambler). There were LOTS of examples of illnesses that may be stigmatised (e.g. colorectal cancer, bipolar disorder) through different phases of illness (e.g. diagnosis, disclosure). You drew attention to the social processes involved in stigmatisation, such as exclusion, rejection and devaluation, not only of patients, but also their wider social networks. And you also linked issues of stigmatisation with issues of blame (e.g. the association of liver disease with heavy drinking). Lastly, you also drew on a sociological perspective to highlight how illnesses can be experienced differently over time (e.g. different societal reactions to HIV in the 1980s, 1990s and beyond), how different social, economic, political and cultural factors may come into play in shaping the way people view different illness, and you came up with the really interesting concept of ‘positive stigma’.
So, well done! You have together highlighted diverse and interesting examples of illness in social context. You also highlighted other areas that are of potential sociological interest (e.g. the role of screening in society) that we can turn to in future lectures/seminars.
You might like to take a look at the summaries that Trish and Moira have also posted to see what came out of the other seminar groups/
