Medicalization and Social Control

Conrad, Peter. "Medicalization and Social Control". Annual Review of Sociology. Vol 18. 1992. pg. 209-232.


I have been thinking lately about the way medicalization relates to social control. In this article Conrad defines "medicalization" as "a process by which nonmedical problems become defned and treated as medical problems, usually in terms of illnesses or disorders" (Conrad, pg. 209). This article goes on to describe the way medicalization connects with ideas about social control we have learned in this course. He describes studies about medicalization and social control over the last 30 years. He describes the issues of "the emergence, definition, contexts, process, degree, range, consequences, critiques, and future of medicalization and demedicalization" (Conrad, pg. 209).