The summer cohort application deadline is May 18, 2025
Apply here

Medical Sociology

In recent decades, psychotherapy has become increasingly popular and diverse. Views on what constitutes a “mental illness” and what constitutes humane treatments have evolved with social norms. Psychopathology has also become increasingly amenable to the discussion of “public issues” that fall outside of an individual’s private life. This course takes a sociological lens to the study of psychotherapy, grounding itself in the emergence of a modern “therapeutic society.” We focus on the practice of psychotherapy itself and the topics that individuals bring to psychotherapy, as well as how those topics are discussed in society. In so doing, we consider both the role of “the medical expert”—the therapist—and the role of “the patient”—the individual attending therapy. Students taking this course will thus learn about the broad field of study that is “medical sociology,” along with the critical perspective through which it operates.

Pre-approved Topic List

  1. How did modern medicine emerge? When did medicine become a “profession?”
  2. How did psychotherapy emerge? What role did Sigmund Freud play in its emergence?
  3. How does psychotherapy work? What are its goals?
  4. What does it mean that some psychotherapists work in a “public” setting, while others work in a “private” setting?
  5. In what ways has psychotherapy changed over the past twenty years? What about over the past fifty years?
  6. How do the topics that individuals bring to psychotherapy compare to the topics of old?
  7. How do the topics that individuals bring to psychotherapy compare across demographic groups?
  8. What are some of the core demographic variables with which sociologists are concerned? Why?
  9. How does one’s social context affect their health? What are the “social determinants of health”?
  10. Name a few branches of psychotherapy and describe how their approaches differ. Why are these differences important?
  11. What is “therapeutic society?” How does this differ from “religious society?”
  12. What does it mean to “psychologize” a problem? What are the consequences of psychologization?
  13. C. Wright Mills famously wrote of the “sociological imagination”? What is the sociological imagination?
  14. How does a sociological approach differ from a psychological one? How might their methodologies differ?
  15. Why might we consider psychotherapy a form of “social control”?
  16. Why might we describe mental illness as being “socially constructed?” Does this mean to say mental illness is not real?
  17. How might we understand the various forms of expertise that a psychotherapist possesses?
  18. In what ways do psychotherapists exercise “moral authority”? How might we define moral authority?
  19. How does the doctor-patient interaction influence health? To what extent is a psychotherapist a “doctor?”
  20. What are the barriers to access to psychotherapy? How are these barriers differentially spread across demographic groups? What explains differing levels of social stigma in seeking psychotherapy?
  21. In the not-so-distant past, many psychotherapists viewed homosexuality as a mental illness. Why and how did this change? How should we understand the persistence of “conversion therapy” for LGBTQIA people?
  22. Anxiety, high libido, irritability, or simply having an assertive personality among women was once considered a psychopathology called “female hysteria.” Why and how did this view change?