Illness as Deviance: A Sociological Perspective

“Illness can be understood as a form of deviance”. Discuss.
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Introduction
The deviance and illness are two sides of a single coin. There are different
frameworks of sociology which help in defining about the mental illness and how they
look at the social systems to define, identify and treat the problems. The functionalists
believe that the mental illness can be recognized, and the society uphold the values for
conforming the behavior.
Sociology of Health
Considering the theoretical standards, the conflict theories are combined with the
labeling theorists who believe that the people who are living in society are equipped with
fewest resources that are labelled to be mentally ill. There are instances where the poor
people are generally seen to suffer mainly from the problems of a higher illness of the
mental stress than the people who hold a better economic and the upper class status.
They are likely to be under the different psychotherapy process. The monitories are
considered to be the people who tend to receive medical with physical rehabilitation.
The sociologists have different explanations when it comes to the social status
and the illness. They say, that the stress of having a low income, is a major factor of
being in the category of racial minority. The women in the sexist society also tend to
contribute for a comparatively higher rate for the illness. This is mainly due to the harsh
treatment of the social environment which is considered to be a major threat to the
mental status. On the other hand, the arguments are about how the homeless women
are seen to be exhibiting the “deranged” behavior. They might be considered as
mentally ill by the society, but nobody knows the problems behind their back. The
women have a higher rates in comparison to the men. It is believed by the sociologists
that this leads to stem from the roles which have been defined by the women who are
forced to play in society (Singh, Mattoo & Grover, 2016). The poverty, unhappy
marriages are considered to be a major stress for the children as well. They tend to
spend more of time, doing the housework which leads to a major greater illness.
There are different theoretical perspectives on deviation. The functional
perspective is about the deviance that defines about the social function of the society. It

helps in addressing the society with the different norms, customs, and the traditions.
Apart from this, there are different frameworks that help in seeing the society as one of
the complex system that works for the promotion of solidarity and stability as well. there
are different actions and behaviors that tend to violate the formal and the informal
cultural norms like the laws or the norms that tend to discourage the public nose-picking
(Gillies, et al, 2017). The functionalism helps in addressing the society as a major norm
where the customs, traditions and the organizations are working over the
methodological development of social science.
The sick role is considered to be a major term which is used in the medical
sociology for the sickness and then for understanding the rights and obligations. The
functionalists theory is argued depending upon the sufferer entering the role that is
being sanctioned. Here, the functional perspective is about how the sick individual is not
considered to be the productive member of society. Hence, the model is considered to
be the best way to understand illness sociologically and then viewing it as one of the
form of deviance (Marcussen, and Asencio, 2016). Here, the theory outlines the
different obligations, where the sick person’s right are considered to be the twofold.
Some of the critics of the functional perspectives are the point of the difference where
the model helps in assuming about the individual voluntary approach. There is a need to
understand about the exemptions which could be seen from the socialized roles which
are considered to be not proper social roles (Lyttleton, 2016). Hence, it is seen that the
sick people are generally obligated to include that one should try to focus on getting well
and then cooperate with the different professionalism and medical standards. They
might not be able to give upon the social obligations and then tend to resist the
dependency with avoidance to the public social role of illness. The structural
functionalism has been considered to be obsolete at times (Marcussen, Gallagher, and
Ritter, 2018).
The conflict perspectives argue about the economic and the political structures of
the society where there is a need to create the social divisions and the inequalities and
the conflicts. The classical theory is defined with Karl Marx who posited about capitalism
which is about inevitable producing the internal tensions to own destruction. The theory