MODELS OF ILLNESS AND THE THEORY OF SOCIETY: PARSONS' CONTRIBUTION TO THE EARLY HISTORY OF MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY

Abstract

Parsons' medical sociology has recently been recognised for its importance to his theory of society. But the double focus of his explanations of illness is not yet widely understood. It comprises a capacity model based on economic thinking, and a deviancy model based on psychoanalytic thought.

In the 1930s and 1940s Parsons undertook to understand medical practice in order to focus on liberal democracy in modern society. He used medical practice as an example and also as a metaphor to demonstrate the mechanisms of liberal democracy as against those of capitalism, socialism and the then contemporary fascism.

By considering this background, the link between models of illness and the theory of society, established in The Social System, ought to have been recognised by Parsons' critics who then might not have charged him with advocating a non-democratic solution to the problem of how social order is possible. By recommending the recognition of the double focus of Parsons' illness explanation, and its viability for his theory of action systems, it is argued that Parsons was criticised too readily in the 1960s and that his humanist standpoint can be recovered by focussing on his early contribution to medical sociology.