Lecture Preparation Flashcards on Mental Illness and Social Structure

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts from the lecture notes on mental illness, social structure, and their interrelated aspects.

Agency

An individual's ability to be independent, make choices, and have control over their life.

Structure

The social systems, institutions, norms, and rules that shape and constrain individual actions.

Discourse

Ways of talking/knowing that shape how we understand and organize reality.

Social Stratification

A system of social inequality characterized by the division of society into hierarchical levels based on factors like class, race, and income.

Mental Illness

A condition affecting a person's thinking, feeling, behavior, or mood, which may affect daily functioning.

Deinstitutionalization

The process of reducing the population of mental hospitals, often due to the push for community-based treatment.

Stigma

A social phenomenon in which individuals with certain characteristics are labeled as undesirable, leading to discrimination and social exclusion.

Psychotropic Drugs

Medications that affect mood, sensation, thinking, and behavior, commonly used in the treatment of mental disorders.

Drapetomania

A mental illness proposed in the antebellum U.S. South that claimed enslaved Africans' desire to escape slavery was irrational.

Medicalization of Normality

The process by which normal human experiences are redefined as medical problems or disorders.

Social Causation

The concept that social factors, such as poverty, contribute to the development of mental illness.

Genetic Essentialism

The belief that certain conditions, including mental illness, are entirely due to genetic factors.

Labor Market Inequalities

Disparities in job opportunities, wages, and conditions that significantly affect mental health outcomes.

Biopsychosocial Model

An integrated approach that considers biological, psychological, and social factors in understanding health and illness.

Narrative Identity

The internalized and evolving life story that provides individuals with a sense of purpose and direction.

Self-Stigma

The internalization of stigma and negative beliefs about oneself due to having a mental illness.

Power/Knowledge

The concept that knowledge is constructed by power dynamics within society and influences how individuals are perceived.

Therapeutic Specificity

The idea that a specific diagnosis should correspond to a specific, effective treatment.