SOC 445 Chapter Notes - Chapter Reading #3 pt 1/2: Medicalization, Diminution, Opiate

• School: U of M
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 445
• Professor: Professor PJ McGann

Document Summary

Conrad, medicalization: context, characteristics, and changes: main idea, [t]he social underpinnings of this expansion of medical jurisdiction and the social implications of this development (p 4, e. g. , medicalization of human problems question. [whether] they are real medical problems. (p 4: medical jurisdiction has been growing the past 50 years. Medicalization - describes a process by which nonmedical problems become defined and treated as medical problems, usually in terms of illness and disorders. The rise of medicalization: social factors that encouraged medicalization, diminution of religion, growing faith in science, rationality, progress, increased prestige and power of the medical profession. } the way social trends/waves connect or relate to the way the power of the medical institution. } because medicalization has increasing power, it has the power to label. Medicalization is a kind of social control. Not the definition of medicalization, but how medicalization defines things. Cuts through our society and encompasses broad areas of human life.