SOC346H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Problem Gambling, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Medicalization
Document Summary
Medicalization: describes a process by which nonmedical problems become defined and treated as medical problems, usually in terms of illnesses or disorders. During the 1970s the term medicalization came into social science literature first people to call attention to medicalization was the field of psychiatry. Zola medicalization is a process whereby more and more of everyday life has come under medical dominion, influence and supervision. Conrad- defining behaviour as a medical problem or illness and mandating or licensing the medical profession to provide some type of treatment for it. Both argue the problem must move into the jurisdiction of the medical profession. Sociologists have examined two important contextual aspects affecting medicalization: secularization and the changing status of the medical profession. Secularization- many writes suggestsed that medicine had nudged aside, replaced religion as the dominant moral ideology and social control institution in modern societies, conditions transformed from sin to crime to sickness.
