The Domination-Deprivation Model

Abstract

In the early 1970s, Freidson’s (1970a, 1970b) strictures against professional dominance made clear that the reality of illness is embedded in institutional conditions of its diagnosis and treatment. Both depend on the social construction of knowledge which, in turn, is lodged with a category of experts hermetically distinguished from the lay public. Freidson acknowledges an intellectual debt to Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1966) which he quotes, declaring that

reality is socially defined. But the definitions are always embodied that is, concrete individuals and groups of individuals serve as definers of reality. To understand the state of the socially constructed universe at any given time, or its change over time, one must understand the social organization that permits the definers to do their defining. (1966, p. 107; cited by Freidson, 1970a, p. 379)