Abstract
Is medicalization always harmful? When does medicine overstep its proper boundaries? The aim of this article is to outline the pragmatic criteria for distinguishing between medicalization and over-medicalization. The consequences of considering a phenomenon to be a medical problem may take radically different forms depending on whether the problem in question is correctly or incorrectly perceived as a medical issue. Neither indiscriminate acceptance of medicalization of subsequent areas of human existence, nor criticizing new medicalization cases just because they are medicalization can be justified. The article: (i) identifies various consequences of both well-founded medicalization and over-medicalization; (ii) demonstrates that the issue of defining appropriate limits of medicine cannot be solved by creating an optimum model of health; (iii) proposes four guiding questions to help distinguish medicalization from over-medicalization. The article should foster a normative analysis of the phenomenon of medicalization and contribute to the bioethical reflection on the boundaries of medicine.
Highlights
For the purposes of this article, I use the following sociological definition of medicalization, according to which X is medicalized when it “is defined in medical terms, described using medical language, understood through the adoption of a medical framework, or ‘treated’ with medical intervention” (Conrad 2007, p. 5)
The article: (i) identifies various consequences of both well-founded medicalization and over-medicalization (Table 1); (ii) demonstrates that the issue of defining appropriate limits of medicine cannot be solved by creating an optimum model of health; (iii) proposes four guiding questions to help distinguish medicalization from over-medicalization and to analyse specific examples of medicalization (Table 2)
The article should foster a normative analysis of the phenomenon of medicalization and contribute to the bioethical reflection on the boundaries of medicine
Summary
For the purposes of this article, I use the following sociological definition of medicalization, according to which X is medicalized when it “is defined in medical terms, described using medical language, understood through the adoption of a medical framework, or ‘treated’ with medical intervention” (Conrad 2007, p. 5). The history of the notion of medicalization clearly indicates that from its very beginning it has been associated with the criticism of expansion of medicine and perceiving it as an instrument of social control (Zola 1972; Szasz 1970, 2007; Illich 1976, 2010; Busfield 2017). The article: (i) identifies various consequences of both well-founded medicalization and over-medicalization (Table 1); (ii) demonstrates that the issue of defining appropriate limits of medicine cannot be solved by creating an optimum model of health; (iii) proposes four guiding questions to help distinguish medicalization from over-medicalization and to analyse specific examples of medicalization (Table 2). The article should foster a normative analysis of the phenomenon of medicalization and contribute to the bioethical reflection on the boundaries of medicine
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