The Medicalization of Life

A cura di: Antonio Maturo, Peter Conrad

The Medicalization of Life

In many affluent societies, we are experiencing a growing medicalization of everyday life. Some human conditions, which were once considered normal, are now considered pathological. Furthermore, in many Western countries there has been an incredible increase in mental disorders such as social anxiety, ADHD, depression and bipolar disorder, which raises questions about the diagnostic criteria on which pharmaceuticals are prescribed. This volume presents updated answers to the dilemmas emerging from the ongoing medicalization of everyday life.

Pages: 304

ISBN: 9788856818239

Edizione:1a edizione 2009

Publisher code: 1341.29

Can print: No

Can Copy: No

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Format: PDF con DRM for Digital Editions

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Is a lively and boisterous child a sick child? Is feeling shy and nervous when you meet new people a sign of depression? Does alternating days of happiness and sadness imply bipolar disorder? Should small breasts be "cured"? Why should a man of seventy have the sexuality of a teenager? In order to be more concentrated at work should we use amphetamines?
In many affluent societies, and especially in the United States, we are experiencing a growing medicalization of everyday life. Some human conditions which were once considered normal are now considered pathological. Furthermore, in many Western countries there has been an incredible increase in mental disorders such as social anxiety, ADHD, depression and bipolar disorder, which raises questions about the diagnostic criteria on which pharmaceuticals are prescribed. The levels upon which people are considered "at risk" of cholesterol and hypertension have been lowered thus introducing the concepts of 'protopathologies' and of "pre-sick" people (the medicalization of prevention). On the other hand, we can also state that a large part of the medicine complex has shifted focus from cure to optimization, which characterizes some bio economic strategies.
The possibility of intervention on a genetic level, has further contributed to blurring the borders between pathology and normality.
This volume, containing contributions from scholars of different nationalities, presents updated answers to the dilemmas emerging from the ongoing medicalization of everyday life.

Antonio Maturo is Assistant Professor of Sociology of Health at the Facoltà di Scienze Politiche "Roberto Ruffilli" - Università di Bologna. He has written a handbook on the sociology of illness (in Italian). Antonio Maturo taught Medical Sociology at Brown University and was Visiting Scientist at both Harvard and New York University. He has given talks at Boston University, Umeå Universiteit, and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, among others.
Peter Conrad is Harry Coplan Professor of Social Sciences at Brandeis University. He served as chair of the Department of Sociology for nine years and is currently chair of the interdisciplinary program "Health: Science, Society and Policy" (HSSP). He is the author of over one hundred articles and chapters and nine books, including the awarding winning, Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness (with Joseph W. Schneider) and his most recent book, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (2007). He has served as chair of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association (1989-1990).



Donald W. Light, Editorial
Antonio Maturo and Peter Conrad, Introduction
Theory
Antonio Maturo, The Shifting Borders of Medicalization: Perspectives and Dilemmas of Human Enhancement
Peter Conrad, The Shifting Engines of Medicalization
Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield, The Medicalization of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed a Natural Emotion into a Mental Disorder
Rossella Ghigi, The Medicalization of Ugliness
Luca Mori, At the Core of Life. The Medicalization of Society in Michel Foucault
Discussion
Medicalization, Multiplication of Diseases and Human Enhancement (Antonio Maturo)
Round table with Kristin Barker, Ivo Quaranta, Martijntje Smits and Louis Francois Vedelago
Research
Wendy Christiaens and Edwin van Teijlingen, Four Meanings of Medicalization: Childbirth as a Case Study
Stefano Tomelleri, Metaphors in Action in Medical Practice
Laura M. Carpenter, Demedicalization and Remedicalization of Male Circumcision in Great Britain and the United States
Lia Lombardi, The Medicalization of Human Reproduction: Body and Gender
Joshua Murray, Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising in a Global Context: A Comparison between New Zealand and the United States
Debate
Adele E. Clarke and Janet K. Shim, Medicalization and Biomedicalization Revisited: Technoscience and Transformations of Health, Illness and Biomedicine
Comments
Marco Marzano, Old Concepts and New Paradigma: The Biomedicalization in Italy
Andy Miah, Medicalization, Biomedicalization, or Biotechnologization? Biocultural Capital and a New Social Order
Adele E. Clarke and Janet K. Shim, A Reply to Marco Marzano and Andy Miah
Notes
News
Linda Lombi
, Young People and Drugs into the Eurobarometer Researches: a Reversal of Trend?
Comments
P. Paolo Guzzo
, Medicalization and Juridification in Tardian Inter-Mental Socio Psychology
Giovanni Bertin, Changes to the Welfare System in Post-Modern Society

Serie: Salute e Società

Subjects: Health Sociology

Level: Scholarly Research

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