Exam #2 Study Guide: Chapter 8

Clinical therapeutic process

The healing process that involves the use of medicines that have some active ingredient that is assumed to address either the cause or the symptom of a disorder

Culture-bound syndrome

A mental illness unique to a culture

Disease

The purely physiological condition of being sick, usually determined by a physician

Explanatory model of illness

An explanation of what is happening to a patients body, by the patient, by his family, or by a healthy care practitioner, each of whom may have a different model of what is happening

Illness

Psychological and social experience a patient has of a disease

Medical pluralism

The coexistence and interpenetration of distinct medical traditions with different cultural roots in the same cultural community

Medicalization

The process of viewing or treating as a medical concern conditions that were not previously understood as medical problems

Mind

Emergent qualities of consciousness and intellect that manifest themselves through thought, emotion, perception, will, and imagination

Placebo effect

A healing process that works by persuading a patient that he or she has been given a powerful medicine, even though the “medicine” has no active medical ingredient

Sick role

The culturally defined agreement between patients and family members to acknowledge that a patient is legitimately sick, which involves certain responsibilities and behaviors that caregivers expect of the sick

Social support therapeutic process

A healing process that involves a patient’s social networks, especially close family members and friends, who typically surround the patient during an illness

Symbolic therapeutic process

A healing process that restructures the meanings of the symbols surrounding the illness, particularly during a ritual