The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders

220 Pages·2007·3.25 MB·English

by  Peter Conrad

The Medicalization of Society
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The Medicalization of Society
On the Transformation of Human Conditions
into Treatable Disorders
peter conrad
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
©2007The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2007
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conrad, Peter, 1945–
The medicalization of society : on the transformation of human
conditions into treatable disorders / Peter Conrad.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13:978-0-8018-8584-6(hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10:0-8018-8584-1(hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13:978-0-8018-8585-3(pbk. alk. paper)
ISBN-10:0-8018-8585-X(pbk. alk. paper)
1. Social medicine—History. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Sociology, Medical—trends. WA 31C754m2007]
RA418.C686 2007
362.1—dc22
2006033235
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
For Irving Kenneth Zola (1935–1994)—
Pioneer in the study of medicalization,
inspiring colleague, and good friend
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
part i concepts
1 Medicalization: Context, Characteristics, and Changes 3
part ii cases
2 Extension: Men and the Medicalization of
Andropause, Baldness, and Erectile Dysfunction 23
3 Expansion: From Hyperactive Children to Adult ADHD 46
4 Enhancement: Human Growth Hormone and the
Temptations of Biomedical Enhancement 70
5 Continuity: Homosexuality and the
Potential for Remedicalization 97
part iii constraints and consequences
6 Measuring Medicalization: Categories, Numbers, and Treatment 117
7 The Shifting Engines of Medicalization 133
8 Medicalization and Its Discontents 146
Notes 165
References 171
Index 197
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Preface
I have been interested in the medicalization of society for a long time. My Ph.D.
dissertation was a participant observation study of the medicalization of hyperactiv-
ity in children (Conrad, 1976). This was followed by a more historical account of
themedicalization of deviance, coauthored with Joseph Schneider (Conrad and
Schneider, 1980). Then, after a decade studying other sociological issues, I again
turned my attention to medicalization with a review article on medicalization and
social control (Conrad, 1992). For nearly another decade, I didn’t write much on
medicalization, until I wrote a piece that fused my research on the public discourse
of genetics with medicalization (Conrad, 2000).
Approaching the millennium, it was becoming clear to me that there were sig-
nificant changes occurring around medicalization, and my interest, which had
never waned, was piqued again. My intellectual focus had grown beyond deviance,
so I knew I wanted to study the broader issues around medicalization. My first
thought was to write a comprehensive account of medicalization, reviewing and
integrating everything that had been written on the subject, a kind of medicalization
magnum opus. Once I started delving into the literature, it was clear that this was
too large a task. Simply too many human problems have been medicalized and
toomany scholars—historians, sociologists, anthropologists, physicians, feminists,
bioethicists, and others—had examined pieces of it to fit in one book.
But I felt it was time for a new sociological examination of medicalization, and I
settled on examining the key writings on the subject and focusing my analysis on a
number of cases that reflected different aspects of medicalization. My goal would be
not comprehensive but strategic with respect to the cases I would examine and the
medicalization issues I would raise. I have always been most comfortable looking at
problems inductively, from the case to the more general conceptual understanding.
I would use these cases to develop a greater understanding about the changes in
medicalization, especially as they have occurred in the past three-plus decades.
In general, I chose cases that interested me. There are certainly many important
instances of medicalization that I could have examined—-obesity, reproduction,