PSYCHOLOGY SOCIOLOGY AND HEALTHCARE

The application of psychology and sociology to healthcare: implications for health and social care professionals



The application of psychology and sociology to healthcare: implications for health and social care professionals

Abstract

In earliest times, basic forms of psychology were practiced by priests, shamans, wizards, seers, medicine men, sorcerers, and enchanters, all of whom offered some blend of magic, religion, and herbal remedies to ease the physical and mental suffering of their patients. These early efforts evolved into the current fields of medicine, religion, and psychology, with a residual overlap of influence among the three. Psychology continued its gradual evolution until the 19th century, one that saw significant changes in this field.

Introduction

This paper is based on the application of sociological and psychological theories on health of two family members. The selected family members are George, a 19-year old lad, who drinks heavily. The other one is Alice, a 45 year-old lady, who is suffering from depression.

Sociological Theory and Drinking (The case of George)

Alcohol issues became prominent in American culture in the 1830s, with the launching of the Temperance movement, substantially predating the emergence of American sociology. The social and organizational activity swirled around alcohol issues into the first quarter of the twentieth century, culminating in national Prohibition (Clark 1976; Rumbarger 1989). While the prohibition of alcohol manufacture and distribution in the United States would seem to have offered sociologists a great opportunity for commentary and perhaps criticism of this social policy, as well as opportunity for analyzing the emergence of the policy despite popular ambivalence, an examination of the content of the American Journal of Sociology and the Journal of Social Forces, the two extant sociological journals published during the period of Prohibition (enacted in 1918, enforcement began in 1920, repeal in 1933), finds almost no interest in the topic.

The sociological study of alcohol issues in the United States had its origins in the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. The enactment of Prohibition in 1920 marked the culmination of an 80-year period of prominence for a two-pronged set of efforts to remove drinking from American society, the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League (Gusfield 1963; Clark 1976; Rumbarger 1989). The fundamental ideology of these overlapping but separate movements was that the manufacture, distribution, and use of alcohol are destructive to both social structure and social order. Drinking was said to have especially undermining effects on the family and the workplace through adult male drinking habits, highly visible in the relatively short-lived social institution of the saloon.

Beginning with what has been referred to as the first stream of sociological research, the definition of alcohol abuse is distinctively sociological, based on deviation from the norms of acceptable drinking. If one's drinking is deviant in the eyes of another, then it may be said that an event of alcohol abuse has occurred. This becomes consequential when the defining other is more powerful than the drinker and decides to take action. Thus, a 12-year-old caught drinking a tiny amount ...