Sociology of Diagnosis (Advances in Medical Sociology, Vol. 12) - Hardcover

PJ McGann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0857245759 ISBN 13: 9780857245755

Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2011

Synopsis

Diagnosis is central to medical practice, medical knowledge and research, medicalization dynamics, and health and illness experience. Embedded in social relations, diagnoses reflect and shape social dynamics and cultural concerns. Diagnoses are integral to resource allocation, form the basis for identities, and may become a focal point of turf battles and contested authority. Some diagnoses are willingly embraced, whereas others are strenuously resisted. Some diagnoses come and go as fashions; others persist. A sociological approach to diagnosis therefore occupies a complex intersection of diverse subfields including medical sociology, sociology of knowledge, mental health, deviance, social control, sociology of science, social movements, the body, sexualities, gender, and health and illness. This volume explores the breadth of diagnosis and diagnoses through empirical reports, conceptual work, and theoretical statements from diverse perspectives. Reflecting the multi-faceted nature of the emerging field, the book is arranged in five sections: Frameworks, Context, Contestation, Identity, and Social Control. Sociology of Diagnosis thus provides both a starting point for discussion and means with which to organize the nascent conceptual landscape.

About this title

About the Author:

PJ McGann - University of Michigan, USA
David Hutson - University of Michigan, USA
Barbara Katz Rothman - City University of New York, USA

Review:

Sociologists mostly in the US explore social and political processes that cause diagnostic categories to emerge and disappear, how they are contested within and outside medicine, how diagnostic categories are applied to patients, how diagnostic practices change, and similar issues. Their topics include diagnosis and medicalization, mapping the diagnostic process in psychiatry from talk to action, gender identity disorder and the contested terrain of diagnosis in the transgender rights movement, the vanishing diagnosis of Asperger's Disorder, and diagnosing the criminal addict as biochemistry in the service of the state. No index is provided. Distributed in North America by Turpin Distribution. --Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR

About this edition

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0857245759
• ISBN 13: 9780857245755
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: PJ McGann, David J. Hutson, Barbara Katz Rothman