Editing Medicalization (section)

== Areas ==
{{Undue weight section|date=July 2021}}

=== Sexuality and gender ===
{{Main article|Medicalisation of sexuality|l1 = Medicalization of sexuality}}
Many aspects of human sexuality have been medicalized and pathologised by psychiatry, psychology and the [[pharmaceutical industry]]. This includes masturbation, homosexuality, erectile dysfunction and female sexual dysfunction. Medicalization has also been used to justify sexualisation of [[transgender]] people, [[intersex]] people and those diagnosed with [[HIV/AIDS]]. The medicalization of sexuality has resulted in increased [[social control]], [[disease mongering]], surveillance, and increased funding in some research areas of [[sexology]] and human physiology. The practice of medicalizing sexuality has been widely criticized, with one of the most common criticisms being that the [[biological reductionism]] and other tenets of medicalisation, individualism and naturalism, generally fail to take into account [[Sociocultural perspective|sociocultural]] factors contributing to [[human sexuality]].<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Štulhofer |first=Aleksandar |title=The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality |date=2015-04-20 |isbn=9781405190060 |pages=721–817 |chapter=Medicalization of sexuality |doi=10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs297 |chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs297}}</ref><ref name=":11">{{Cite journal |last=Tiefer |first=Leonore |date=May 2010 |title=Still resisting after all these years: an update on sexuo-medicalization and on the New View Campaign to challenge the medicalization of women's sexuality |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14681991003649495 |journal=Sexual and Relationship Therapy |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=189–196 |doi=10.1080/14681991003649495 |issn=1468-1994 |s2cid=145389996 |access-date=2023-12-12 |via=EBSCO|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The [[HIV/AIDS pandemic]] allegedly caused from the 1980s a "profound re-medicalization of sexuality".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aggleton |first1=Peter |title=Framing the sexual subject: the politics of gender, sexuality, and power |last2=Parker |first2=Richard Bordeaux |last3=Barbosa |first3=Regina Maria |publisher=University of California Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-520-21838-8 |location=Berkeley}} p.3</ref><ref>Carole S. Vance "Anthropology Rediscovers Sexuality: A Theoretical Comment." Social Science and Medicine 33 (8) 875-884 1991</ref>{{huh|date=August 2024}}<!--- MAYBE WORD ORDER?  "CAUSED FROM THE 1980s"--->

The diagnosis of [[premenstrual dysphoric disorder]] (PMDD) has caused some controversy when [[fluoxetine]] (also known as Prozac) was being repackaged as a PMDD therapy under the trade named [[Sarafem]]. The psychologist [[Peggy Kleinplatz]] has criticized the diagnosis as the medicalization of normal human behavior.<ref name="offman2004">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</ref> Other medicalized aspects of women's health include [[infertility]],<ref name="Social Science & Medicine 2016 pp. 39–46">{{cite journal |last1=Bell |first1=Ann V. |date=2016-05-01 |title=The margins of medicalization: Diversity and context through the case of infertility |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616301058#bib54 |journal=Social Science & Medicine |volume=156 |pages=39–46 |doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.03.005 |issn=0277-9536 |pmid=27017089 |access-date=2022-01-16|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[breastfeeding]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Apple |first1=R. D. |date=March 1, 1994 |title=The Medicalization of Infant Feeding in the United States and New Zealand: Two Countries, One Experience |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/089033449401000125?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed |journal=The Journal of Human Lactation |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=31–37 |doi=10.1177/089033449401000125 |pmid=7619244 |s2cid=19873049 |access-date=16 January 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref> the childbirth process,<ref name="Shaw 2013 pp. 522–536">{{cite journal |last=Shaw |first=Jessica C. A. |year=2013 |title=The Medicalization of Birth and Midwifery as Resistance |journal=Health Care for Women International |publisher=Informa UK Limited |volume=34 |issue=6 |pages=522–536 |doi=10.1080/07399332.2012.736569 |issn=0739-9332 |pmid=23514572 |s2cid=30949127 |doi-access=free}}</ref> and [[postpartum depression]].<ref name="Godderis pp. 484–500">{{cite journal |last=Godderis |first=Rebecca |date=2011-09-01 |title=Iterative Generation of Diagnostic Categories Through Production and Practice: The Case of Postpartum Depression |journal=Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry |publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=484–500 |doi=10.1007/s11013-011-9232-0 |issn=0165-005X |pmid=21882061 |s2cid=21432019}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rosenfeld |first1=Dana |title=Medicalized masculinities |last2=Faircloth |first2=Christopher A. |date=2006 |publisher=Temple University Press |isbn=1592130976 |location=Philadelphia |oclc=60603319}}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Marshall |first1=Barbara L. |date=July 1, 2006 |title=The New Virility: Viagra, Male Aging and Sexual Function |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1363460706065057 |journal=Sexualities |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=345–362 |doi=10.1177/1363460706065057 |s2cid=145132541 |access-date=16 January 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

According to Mike Fitzpatrick, resistance to medicalization was a common theme of the [[gay liberation]], [[anti-psychiatry]], and [[feminist movement]]s of the 1970s, but now there is "virtually no resistance to the advance of government intrusion in lifestyle if it is deemed to be justified in terms of public health."<ref name="Fitzpatrick">{{cite journal |last=Fitzpatrick |first=Mike |date=August 2004 |title=From 'nanny state' to 'therapeutic state' |journal=[[The British Journal of General Practice]] |volume=1 |issue=54(505) |pages=645 |pmc=1324868 |pmid=15517694}}</ref> Moreover, the pressure for medicalization now comes from society itself as well as from the government and medical professionals.<ref name="Fitzpatrick" />

=== 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 (psychiatrist)|Robert Spitzer]], [[Allen Frances]]).<ref name="stuarta">{{cite book |last1=Kirk |first1=S. A. |last2=Gomory |first2=T. |last3=Cohen |first3=D. |title=Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=2013 |page=185}}</ref>

[[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".<ref>{{citation |author=Thomas Szasz |title=The Manufacture of Madness |pages=153–170 |year=1970 |publisher=Syracuse University Press}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Sapouna">{{cite book |last1=Sapouna |first1=Lydia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y1-X6iP-m9UC&pg=PA70 |title=Knowledge in Mental Health: Reclaiming the Social |last2=Herrmann |first2=Peter |publisher=Nova Publishers |year=2006 |isbn=1-59454-812-9 |location=Hauppauge |page=70}}</ref>{{rp|70}} As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances.<ref name="Metzl">{{cite book |last=Metzl |first=Jonathan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t1Bg9QEiCAMC&pg=PA14 |title=The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease |publisher=Beacon Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8070-8592-9 |page=14}}</ref>{{rp|14}}

According to Nicholas Kittrie, a number of phenomena considered "deviant", such as [[alcoholism]], [[drug addiction]], [[prostitution]], [[pedophilia]], and masturbation ("self-abuse"), were originally considered as moral, then legal, and now medical problems.<ref name="Manning">{{cite book |last=Manning |first=Nick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lc4OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1 |title=The therapeutic community movement: charisma and routinization |publisher=Routledge |year=1989 |isbn=0-415-02913-9 |location=London |page=1}}</ref>{{rp|1}}<ref name="Kittrie">{{cite book |last=Kittrie |first=Nicholas |url=https://archive.org/details/righttobediffere00nich |title=The right to be different: deviance and enforced therapy |publisher=Johns Hopkins Press |year=1971 |isbn=0-8018-1319-0 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Innumerable other conditions such as obesity, smoking cigarettes, draft malingering, bachelorhood, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, kleptomania, and grief, have been declared diseases by medical and psychiatric authorities.<ref>{{citation |author=Thomas Szasz |title=The Theology of Medicine |page=109 |year=1977 |publisher=Harper & Row}}</ref> Due to these perceptions, peculiar deviants were subjected to moral, then legal, and now medical modes of social control.<ref name="Manning" />{{rp|1}} Similarly, Conrad and Schneider concluded their review of the medicalization of deviance by identifying three major paradigms that have reigned over deviance designations in different historical periods: deviance as sin; deviance as crime; and deviance as sickness.<ref name="Manning" />{{rp|1}}<ref name="Conrad">{{cite book |last1=Conrad |first1=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hYpZjDD67dkC&pg=PA36 |title=Deviance and medicalization: from badness to sickness |last2=Schneider |first2=Joseph |publisher=Temple University Press |year=1992 |isbn=0-87722-999-6 |page=36}}</ref>{{rp|36}}

According to [[Thomas Szasz]], "the [[Therapeutic State|therapeutic state]] swallows up everything human on the seemingly rational ground that nothing falls outside the province of health and medicine, just as the theological state had swallowed up everything human on the perfectly rational ground that nothing falls outside the province of God and religion".<ref name="Szasz, 2001">{{cite journal |last=Szasz |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Szasz |date=Spring 2001 |title=The Therapeutic State: The Tyranny of Pharmacracy |url=http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_05_4_szasz.pdf |journal=[[The Independent Review]] |volume=V |issue=4 |pages=485–521 |issn=1086-1653 |access-date=20 January 2012}}</ref>{{rp|515}}

=== Labeling theory ===
{{Further|Labeling theory}}
A 2002 editorial in the ''[[British Medical Journal]]'' warned of inappropriate medicalization leading to disease mongering, where the boundaries of the definition of illnesses are expanded to include personal problems as medical problems or risks of diseases are emphasized to broaden the market for medications. The authors noted:

{{blockquote|
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.<ref name=Moynihan>{{cite journal|last1=Moynihan|first1=Ray|last2=Heath|first2=Iona|last3=Henry|first3=David|title=Selling sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering|journal=[[BMJ]]|date=13 April 2002|volume=324 | issue = 7342 |pages=886–891|pmid=11950740|pmc=1122833|doi=10.1136/bmj.324.7342.886}}</ref> 
}}