• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
  • WORLD DEMOCRACY
  • POLITICAL ART
  • more
    • election technology
    • money politics
    • political dissidents
    • THIRD PARTY
      • third party central
      • green party
      • justice party
      • libertarian party
    • voting methods
  • DC INFO
    • author central
    • about
    • advertise with DC
    • contact
    • privacy policy

Democracy Chronicles

The Politics of Medicalization

by Aydasara Ortega - October 26, 2015

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

“I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths,
of one sinuous spreading labyrinth
that would encompass the past and the future
and in some way involve the stars.”1

Medicalization refers to the name given to a condition or behavior. It encompasses defining the condition or behavior in medical terms and using a medical intervention to treat it. This process has been considered key to enable understanding and reduce stigma.

A debate with medicalization is coming to terms with what is decided to be suitable for medical prevention and – consequently – medical social control. “Deviant behaviors that were once defined as immoral, sinful, or criminal have been given medical meanings. Some say that rehabilitation has replaced punishment, but in many cases medical treatments have become a new form of punishment and social control.”2

Simultaneously, there is a continuous expansion of medical jurisdiction on life as conditions and behaviors are medicalized. That is, as medicine is commodified, medicalization involves profit-making medical marketing. “The more time, toil, and sacrifice spent by a population in producing medicine as a commodity, the larger will be the by-product, namely, the fallacy that society has a supply of health locked away which can be mined and marketed.”3

One view of medicalization puts forth that it can be harmful to people through iatrogenesis, a process in which illness and social problems increase due to medical intervention. This process occurs on three levels:

  • the clinical: involving serious side effects worse than the original condition.
  • the social: whereby the general public is made docile and reliant on the medical profession to cope with life in their society.
  • the structural: whereby the idea of aging and dying as medical illnesses effectively “medicalized” human life and left individuals and societies less able to deal with these “natural” processes.4

Politics of Medicalization

“Most curable sickness can now be diagnosed and treated by laymen. People find it so difficult to accept this statement because the complexity of medical ritual has hidden from them the simplicity of its basic procedures.”5

Another view questions the medicalization of poverty and naming it mental illness. For instance, when mental illness is perceived in the countless ways “disadvantaged” people manage and bear demanding conditions – e.g. job and housing uncertainty.

Politics of Medicalization

A diagnosis of ADHD is given to a 9-year-old who cannot focus on the lesson at school. Meanwhile, he or she is focusing on how to return home safely, care for the siblings and get some sleep. A 15-year-old who courageously challenges an unpredictable parent is named Defiant. Behaviors or conditions are named dysfunctional in one context – e.g. school or work – while they can be understood in another – e.g. home or neighborhood. “I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”6

Medicalization becomes a negligent bystander when it is evident that a diagnosis overlooks the intersecting causes of a condition or behavior – e.g. social inequality, poverty and cultural differences.7 “So you see, all of these influences together make him somewhat shy and quiet—and perhaps “slow” according to your standards.8“ Even if good intentioned, the politics of medicalization can be uninformed and one sided.

But not always. “You know the difference between a real science and a pseudoscience? A real science recognizes and accepts its own history without feeling attacked.”9 There exists demedicalization shifting, developing, emerging, discovering, changing…10 “I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths.”11

Politics of Medicalization

LINKS:

  1. Jorge Luis Borges. The Garden of Forking Paths.
  2. Peter Conrad. Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness.
  3. Ivan Illich. Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ivan Illich. Tools for Conviviality.
  6. Baruch Spinoza. Tractacus Politicus.
  7. Vicente Navarro. The Political Economy of Social Inequalities. Consequences for Health and Quality of Life
  8. An Indian Father’s Plea.
  9. Martin, L. H. et al. Truth, Power, Self: An Interview with Michel Foucault. October 25th, 1982.
  10. Peter Conrad. The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions.
  11. Jorge Luis Borges. The Garden of Forking Paths.
Politics of Medicalization
Linocuts by artist Ruben Rivera
FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: Capitalism and Big Business

About Aydasara Ortega

Aydasara Ortega Torres writes for Democracy Chronicles from New York. She is a Faculty Member of Psychology at the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Also take a look at her website for more of her work.

Some highlighted Democracy Chronicles topics

Africa American Corruption American Local Elections American State Elections Asia Capitalism and Big Business Celebrity Politics China Democracy Charity Democracy Protests Democrats Dictatorships Education Election History Election Methods Election Security Election Transparency Europe Internet and Democracy Journalism and Free Speech Middle East Minority Voting Rights Money Politics New York City and State Elections Political Artwork Political Dissidents Political Lobbying Redistricting Republicans Russia Socialism and Labor Social Media and Democracy South America Spying and Privacy Supreme Court Third Party Voter Access Voter ID Voter Registration Voter Suppression Voter Turnout Voting Technology Women Voting Rights Worldwide Worldwide Corruption

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Andrea Mosley says

    October 26, 2015 at 2:51 pm

    An amazing collaboration of insightful intellect and information that most refuse to acknowledge. The simple truth is the reality of the pharmaceutical/medical industry and its need to extract more money from the general public BY ANY means.

    p.s. Great visuals by Mr Rivera- he is truly gifted in composing in art, your words on the page.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Home | DC AUTHORS | The Politics of Medicalization

Primary Sidebar

Advertise button

Harnessing The Power Of “We The People” On Independence Day

By Jenna Spinelle July 3, 2022

Democracy does not have a singular definition, which is one of the things that makes it so interesting to me — and undoubtedly to many of you.

Florida Doesn’t Need a Speech Czar

By Steve Schneider June 28, 2022

Full disclosure: I’m a liberal Democrat. So, I won’t be sending in my vote-by-mail ballot for Ron DeSantis in November. Nor will I vote for him in 2024.

democracy chronicles newsletter

DC AUTHORS

Introducing: When The People Decide

By Jenna Spinelle June 25, 2022

Several activists and average citizens have changed their communities and the country by taking important issues directly to votes.

Democracy’s Summer Blockbusters

By Jenna Spinelle June 8, 2022

The summer will be legally and politically charged particularly with the January 6 committee hearings scheduled to begin June 9.

Can American Democracy Have Nice Things?

By Jenna Spinelle June 7, 2022

Universal voting would be the surest way to protect against voter suppression and the active disenfranchisement of a large share of our citizens.

PODCAST: Baby Boomers And American Gerontocracy

By Jenna Spinelle May 23, 2022

Older and younger voters are increasingly at odds: Republicans as a whole skew gray-haired, and within the Democratis, the left-leaning youth vote.

A Dangerous Reprise Of American Exceptionalism In Ukraine

By Jamie Lampidis May 15, 2022

The stakes are too high to cave into Putin’s phantasmatic imperial play, and too high to believe that this war can be won by arming Ukrainians.

On The Coming End Of Roe v. Wade

By Peter J. Dellolio May 11, 2022

Anyone who says that the evolution of law has nothing to do with politics is either very corrupt or very stupid. Laws evolved through the centuries.

Goodbye Roe v. Wade, Goodbye Rule Of Law

By Andrew Straw May 5, 2022

Congress should impeach judges who act like that because it is not good behavior, and they were asked not to act that way when they were confirmed.

MORE FROM OUR AUTHORS

VISIT OUR POLITICAL ART SECTION:

dc political art

DEMOCRACY CULTURE

Magnum Photographers Challenged To Picture Swiss Democracy

Magnum Photographers Challenged To Picture Swiss Democracy

July 6, 2022

Magnum photographers accustomed to exploring crisis regions have been challenged to capture the quiet operation of Swiss democracy.

India: Why Are Punjab Political Singers Under Attack?

India: Why Are Punjab Political Singers Under Attack?

June 8, 2022

The murder of Sidhu Moose Wala has brought attention to the link between Punjabi music and India’s cross-border criminal networks.

University Educated Less Likely To Endorse Authoritarianism

University Educated Less Likely To Endorse Authoritarianism

June 4, 2022

Higher education is now seen as a new political cleavage, with level of education increasingly important in describing political attitudes.

From Cake To Volunteers, Welcome To Australia’s Democracy Day

From Cake To Volunteers, Welcome To Australia’s Democracy Day

May 25, 2022

The atmosphere in the interstate polling booth in Sydney’s inner east resembled that of an emergency room waiting for a donor organ.

Kenyan 'Cartooning For Peace' To Draw Africa Towards Democracy

Kenyan ‘Cartooning For Peace’ To Draw Africa Towards Democracy

May 17, 2022

Cartooning is an art that has been playing a major role in illustrating stories in different ways, from health to politics, and even sports.

MORE CULTURE

VISIT OUR US DEMOCRACY SECTION:

American Democracy