What is the medicalization of behavior? Discuss at least three ways medicalization influences how we think about behavior.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Varies, but may contain the following: when we medicalize behavior, we define behavior in medical terms. We can make three general points about the many possible examples of medicalized behavior.
First, medicine sets the limits of normal behavior and defines people as sick who fall outside these limits. It sorts, labels, and treats the deviant, the nonconformist, the malingerer, and the sick. Thus the way in which medical problems are produced, conceptualized, and treated is the outcome of specific social and historical factors.
Second, the way we conceptualize some social issues as medical problems has immense significance. First, it makes health and illness the outcome of the individual's behavioral or biological malfunctioning and independent of his or her existence in a wider social environment. For example, the drug addiction of a person of lower socioeconomic background is conceptualized as a problem with that person's will or morality, regardless of the fact that the environment in which he or she was raised was pervaded by drug use with no social structure of support or way out.
Third, medicalization makes these problems appear to be the product of nature-of genetics, of biological dysfunction, or of an innate characteristic of the individual. Thus, it puts them safely beyond political and social interventions and solutions.