Medicalización de la vida. «Etiquetas de enfermedad: todo un negocio.»

Abstract

Western societies have displaced problems from the subjective and social fields over to medicine, and the search for the perfect health has become an obsession and a pathogenic predominant factor. Paradoxically, the number of ilnesses and sick people arises proportionally with health levels. We now tend to add «disease labels» in daily clinical practice to behaviors and events that are nothing but elements of character or even healthy reactions to laboral and familial conflicts or mourning. In this article, we analyze the factors that determine this «medicalization» process and its consequences, with a particular emphasis in the iatrogenesis of unnecessary medical interventions.