Medicalization
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Medicalization is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as
Medicalization is studied from a sociologic perspective in terms of the role and power of professionals, patients, and corporations, and also for its implications for ordinary people whose self-identity and life decisions may depend on the prevailing concepts of health and illness. Once a condition is classified as medical, a medical model of disability tends to be used in place of a social model. Medicalization may also be termed pathologization or (pejoratively) "disease mongering". Since medicalization is the social process through which a condition becomes a medical disease in need of treatment, medicalization may be viewed as a benefit to human society. According to this view, the identification of a condition as a disease will lead to the treatment of certain symptoms and conditions, which will improve overall quality of life.
History
The concept of medicalization was devised by sociologists to explain how medical knowledge is applied to behaviors which are not self-evidently medical or biological. was used to pacify children in ancient Egypt before 2000 BC.
These sociologists did not believe medicalization to be a new phenomenon, arguing that medical authorities had always been concerned with social behavior and traditionally functioned as agents of social control (Foucault, 1965; Szasz,1970; Rosen). However, these authors took the view that increasingly sophisticated technology had extended the potential reach of medicalization as a form of social control, especially in terms of "psychotechnology" (Chorover,1973).
In the 1975 book Limits to medicine: Medical nemesis (1975),
The concept of medicalization dovetailed with some aspects of the 1970s
Tiago Correia (2017)
Areas
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Sexuality
Many aspects of human sexuality have been medicalized and pathologised by psychiatry, psychology and the
The
The diagnosis of
Although it has received less attention, it is claimed that masculinity has also faced medicalization, being deemed damaging to health and requiring regulation or enhancement through drugs, technologies or therapy.[15] Specifically, erectile dysfunction was once considered a natural part of the aging process in men, but has since been medicalized as a problem, late-onset hypogonadism.[16]
According to Mike Fitzpatrick, resistance to medicalization was a common theme of the gay liberation, anti-psychiatry, and feminist movements of the 1970s, but now there is actually no resistance to the advance of government intrusion in lifestyle if it is thought to be justified in terms of public health.[17] Moreover, the pressure for medicalization also comes from society itself.[17]
Psychiatry
For many years, marginalized psychiatrists (such as Peter Breggin, Paula Caplan, Thomas Szasz) and outside critics (such as Stuart A. Kirk) have "been accusing psychiatry of engaging in the systematic medicalization of normality". More recently these concerns have come from insiders who have worked for and promoted the American Psychiatric Association (e.g., Robert Spitzer, Allen Frances).[18]
Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, claimed that Black people had black skin because they were ill with hereditary leprosy. Consequently, he considered vitiligo as a "spontaneous cure".[19]
According to Franco Basaglia and his followers, whose approach pointed out the role of psychiatric institutions in the control and medicalization of deviant behaviors and social problems, psychiatry is used as the provider of scientific support for social control to the existing establishment, and the ensuing standards of deviance and normality brought about repressive views of discrete social groups.[20]: 70 As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances.[21]: 14
According to Kittrie, a number of phenomena considered "deviant", such as
According to
Labeling theory
A 2002 editorial in the
Inappropriate medicalisation carries the dangers of unnecessary labelling, poor treatment decisions, iatrogenic illness, and economic waste, as well as the opportunity costs that result when resources are diverted away from treating or preventing more serious disease. At a deeper level it may help to feed unhealthy obsessions with health, obscure or mystify sociological or political explanations for health problems, and focus undue attention on pharmacological, individualised, or privatised solutions.[27]
Healthism
Public health campaigns have been criticized as a form of "healthism", which is moralistic in nature rather than primarily focused on health. Medical doctors Petr Shkrabanek and James McCormick wrote a series of publications on this topic in the late 1980s and early 1990s criticizing the UK's Health of The Nation campaign. These publications exposed abuse of epidemiology and statistics by public health authorities and organizations to support lifestyle interventions and screening programs.[28]: 85 [29]: 7 Inculcating a fear of ill-health and a strong notion of individual responsibility has been derided as "health fascism" by some scholars as it objectifies the individual without considering emotional or social factors.[30]: 8 [29]: 7 [31]: 81
Professionals, patients, corporations and society
Others, however, argue that in practice the process of medicalization tends to strip subjects of their social context, so they come to be understood in terms of the prevailing biomedical
Scholars argue that in the late 20th century transformation within the health sector in the US altered the relationship between people in the healthcare sector.
In response to theory based on medicalisation being insufficient to explain social processes, some scholars have developed a concept of biomedicalization which argues that technical and scientific interventions are transforming medicine. One aspect is pharmaceuticalization, the influence of the use of
Medicalization has brought health issues to the fore, so people think more and more about things in terms of health and act to promote health. When it comes to health issues, medicine is not the only provider of answers, but there have always been alternatives and competitors. At the same time as medicalization, "paramedicalization" has strengthened: also many treatments for which there is no medical basis, at least for now, are popular and commercially successful.[40]
See also
- Interventionism (medicine)
- Gothenburg Study of Children with DAMP
- Medical model
- Sociology of health and illness
- Social stigma
References
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- ^ Carole S. Vance "Anthropology Rediscovers Sexuality: A Theoretical Comment." Social Science and Medicine 33 (8) 875-884 1991
- ^ Offman A, Kleinplatz PJ (2004). Does PMDD Belong in the DSM? Challenging the Medicalization of Women's Bodies. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, Vol. 13
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- ^ Kirk, S. A.; Gomory, T.; Cohen, D. (2013). Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs. Transaction Publishers. p. 185.
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- ^ Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, "Medicine as a corporate enterprise, patient welfare centered profession, or patient welfare centered professional enterprise?" Mens Sana Monographs, 3(2), p19-51
- ^ Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, "The connection between academia and industry", Mens Sana Monographs, 3(1), p5-35
- ^ Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, "Public welfare agenda or corporate research agenda?", Mens Sana Monographs, 3(1), p41-80.
- ^ OCLC 1198989810.)
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Further reading
- ISBN 9780801892349.
- Horwitz, Allan, and Wakefield, Jerome (2007).The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Has Transformed Normal Sadness into Depressive Disorder. Oxford University Press.
- Lane, Christopher (2007). Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness. Yale University Press.
- Illich, Ivan (July 1975). "The medicalization of life". PMID 809583.
- Jamoulle, Marc (February 2015). "Quaternary prevention, an answer of family doctors to overmedicalization" (PDF). International Journal of Health Policy and Management. 4 (2): 61–64. PMID 25674569.
- Hatch, Anthony Ryan (2019). OCLC 1097608624.