One, Two, Many Medicalizations: Mapping the Continuum

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Abstract

Recent work has highlighted nuanced, partial medicalization processes in the forms of “reluctant,” “ambivalent,” and “anticipatory” medicalization. However, to our knowledge, no explanatory framework exists that systematically elucidates the characteristics of these labels in relation to one another and illustrates how they are socially constructed within the context of the clinical encounter. This commentary addresses the literature gap by proposing a continuum of medicalization containing five porous categories: contested, ambivalent, reluctant, anticipatory, and accepted. We demonstrate the utility of these categories by offering example conditions and their overlap or difference in relation to specific office visit processes (i.e, presentation of problem, diagnosis, and treatment). This proposed continuum organizes existing medicalization conceptualizations in relation to one another and points to the biomedical model of illness as a key factor that impedes or speeds medicalization in the context of the physician office visit.

Authors

• Mairead Eastin Moloney, University of Kentucky

• Harry Barbee, Vanderbilt University

• Thomas R. Konrad, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill