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"He then points out that all of our studying, probing and doctoring actually changes people, for we do not exist in a vacuum."

I like the idea of "making people up" and the concept that individual people together influence their culture/society but that activity can in turn change the individuals and so on back and forth. I like concrete examples and one (maybe) that came to mind... why do people who hear voices, those with schizophrenia or what have you, often have hallucinations of a negative nature? One suggestion is that historically most people who heard voices did not neccessarily have negative/threatening/violent ones, and that cultural judgements about hearing voices has biased hallucinations.

"what of people who do benefit, personally, from a paradigm that does empower them to see "illness" as being something they "have" and not who they are?"

I don't think a particular "model" of anything has to be entirely rejected, if there are aspects of it that "work" I think they can be incorporated into a new "model". As Professor Gibbs said in class, many of her clients like thinking about their "condition" as biologically based and that helps them acheive whatever their goals in therapy may be. But it still begs the question, would those people who are empowered by thinking in terms of "illness" feel disempowered to begin with in a new/better model of mental health? If yes, then feeling empowered by thinking in terms of "illness" would seem appropriate. But maybe they could end up feeling more empowered by a new/better model? I think a goal for a new model of mental health would be for all to feel as empowered as possible in the first place and then act from there. I think maybe we have to examine what purpose thinking of something as an illness, not a part of who they are, serves. For my personal experiences of depression, thinking it of an "illness" has been helpful in so far that it releases some of the responsibility and allowed me to look at my experience more objectively and in a way understand it better. On the other hand, thinking of it as an "illness" makes me feel powerless and feel like it has "happened to" me.

So, I guess my conclusion for right now is that because we've acknowledged that individuals are so diverse, on a number of parameters, we can't get caught up in trying to make too broad of generalizations, as there will always seem to be exceptions and unique contexts to consider.