The Process of Medicalization of Deviance Among Minority Groups in West

From UBC Wiki

Medicalization of deviant behaviour refers to the process of defining and labelling non-normative and deviant behaviours as a medical problem, typically an illness. The burgeoning use of medicine as an agent of social control, usually as medical intervention, is concomitant with the construction of deviance as an illness.[1] The idea that deviant behaviour is an illness have existed in various forms for thousands of years, however it is only in the 19th and 20th centuries that the medical designations of deviant behaviour have become the dominant definition of deviance.[1]

Minority Groups

In sociology, a minority group is defined as a group of people who experience relative disadvantage compared to the members of the dominant social group within a society.[2] The membership in a minority group is based on differences in interests or observable characteristics such as: sexual orientation, sex, religion, race or social class.[2]

Minority Groups and Deviance

The minority group membership is inextricably bound up with the definition of deviance. This is evident as the empowered "norm" is white, male, heterosexual and from middle or upper class, whereas the "abnormal" or "deviant" is people of colour, female, poverty-stricken or LGBT community.[3]

Stages of Medicalization of Deviance

Conrad and Schneider (1980) proposed a 5-step sequential model in order to describe the process of medicalization of deviance:[4]

  1. Definition – The conduct or behaviour in question is viewed as morally deviant before the emergence of medical definitions.
  2. Prospection – The medical nature of deviance is "discovered" for the first time, and this "discovery" is typically announced in a professional medical journal. It might appear as a new medical or diagnostic term, or reports of a medical treatment for the conduct or behaviour.
  3. Claims-making – Various organized interest groups aim to expand the medical territory by accentuating the size and solemnity of the problem, and such interest groups will gain profit if the new medical perspective is adopted. An example would be pharmaceutical companies.[5]
  4. Legitimacy – The proponents of the medical deviance designation make a request to the state to recognize the medical viewpoint. They seek powers of definition and management over the problem.
  5. Institutionalization – The medical view-point is officially part of the medical or legal classification system. It is included as an official diagnosis in the medical manuals, and medical treatment for it is readily available. Moreover, institutions of social and ideological control such as government, National Institute of Health (NIH), American Psychiatric Association (APA), media, etc. support the new medical perspective financially and intellectually.

Sexual Deviance: Homosexuality

Homosexuality has been regarded as a form of sexual deviance historically in west.[6] For over 2000 years same-sex conduct was deemed sinful and morally prohibited. [1] Over time, such behaviour became criminal, and then for the last 100 years a sickness. Only recently the medicalization of homosexuality has been challenged.[1]

Application of Conrad and Schneider's Sequential Model

[7]1976 gay rights demonstration in New York City

First, homosexuality has been viewed as a deviant behaviour historically in the west. This is evident as homosexuality has been included in the sociological study of deviance as prototypical of central principles of deviance.[8] The second stage can be traced back to the end of the 19th century when medical professionals started to view same-sex conduct as a consequence of hereditary or congenial degeneration, and a medical diagnosis began to emerge.[1] Consistent with the third stage, medical and scientific specialists were eager to lay claims and attempted the acceptance of the new discovery as a means of furthering their expertise.[9] At the fourth stage of medicalization, physicians, medical professionals and proponents of this view requested the state to recognize homosexuality as a pathology and stop the criminalization and the growing legal repression of same-sex conduct.[1] Finally, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) included homosexuality as an official diagnosis in the first edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1952. In this official medical manual, homosexuality was labelled as a form of "sexual deviance" and fell under the psychiatric category of "Sociopathic Personality Disturbance".[1]

Demedicalization

In the 1970s, the medicalization of homosexuality was challenged in the United states. There was a growing attack on negative definitions of homosexual conduct.[1] Consequently, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) redesignated homosexual conduct as non-pathological and removed homosexuality from the DSM in 1973.[10]

Deviant Female Behaviours: Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)

PMS is becoming medicalized. Behaviours that previously were associated with neurosis, deviance, criminality or as a result of women's imagination are becoming associated with biological imbalances that could be treated medically.[11]

Application of Conrad and Schneider's Sequential Model

First, behaviours assumed to be as a result of menstrual cycle have been labelled as deviant historically and currently, and according to Koeske (1976) the behaviours associated with menstrual cycle "are thought of as negative and implicitly, unusual, for women".[11][12][13] The second stage can be traced back to when Frank (1931) published the etiology of PMS in a medical journal stating that an excessive amount of female sex hormones will cause PMS.[11] Consistent with the third stage, claims-making and counter claims-making, the following scientific research challenged Frank's theory.[11] Fourth stage is evident when proponents of medicalization of PMS made requests to the court to recognize PMS as an illness for women committing crime during the premenstrual phase of the menstrual cycle.[11] Finally, PMS has become institutionalized as there have been cases of successfully pleaded diminished responsibility due to suffering from PMS syndrome in Britain and France.[14] Furthermore, it has been proposed to include PMS in the official medical manuals as "premenstrual dysphoric disorder". Thus, it is evident that the phenomenon of medicalization of PMS have taken place.[11]

Deviant Religions: Exotic and New Religions

Some individual groups have strived to appoint and label the participation in new and exotic religious groups as a medical problem. Medicalization of exotic and new religions enables the authorities to socially control the members of the society and the religious groups. Moreover, the social control efforts have often been implemented by courts, "a tactic often buttressed by mental health designation".[15]

Application of Conrad and Schneider's Sequential Model

First, the involvement in new and exotic religions was looked at as deviant in late 1960s in the U.S. In a world of surging secularism, and the involvement of people in such religions was not considered normal.[15] Consistent with the second stage, the discovery was published in two medical journals of American Family physician by Eli Shapiro (1977) and JAMA by John Clark (1979).[16][17] The third stage can be traced back to when representatives of mental health field attempted the acceptance of the new disorder as a means of furthering their expertise as agents of social control.[15] Fourth stage is consistent with the efforts to get the government to adopt policies dealing with the cult problem.[15] Finally, the behaviours related to cult participation were successfully published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980.[15]

Race and Class

Race and class are bound up with the definition and social control of deviance. Although there are "deviants" of all classes and races, however the informal markers and the stigmas associated with race often provide the foundation in social control, and this leads to medicalization for the "redeemable" white, middle and upper class and criminalization for the poor and people of colour.[18] Heitzeg (2008) argues that indeed the very foundations of criminal justice "are rooted in racism and classism" and that the criminal justice serves the primary function of social control of the poor and people of colour. Consequently, the medical model is typically a therapeutic alternative for white and financially well-off individuals.[18]

Reference

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Conrad, Peter; Schneider, Joseph W.; Gusfleld, Joseph R. (1992). Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. Temple University Press. pp. 29–213.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ritzer, George; Wiedenhoft Murphy, Wendy (2018). Essentials of Sociology. SAGE Publications, Inc.
  3. ↑ Pfohl, Stephen J. (1994). Images of deviance and social control: A sociological history. McGraw-Hill.
  4. ↑ Conrad, Peter; Schneider, Joseph W.; Gusfleld, Joseph R. (1992). Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. Temple University Press. pp. 266–271.
  5. ↑ Cottle, Michelle (1999). "Selling Shyness: How doctors and drug companies created the "social phobia" epidemic". The New Republic.
  6. ↑ Simon, William; Gagnon, John H. (September 1967). "Homosexuality: The Formulation of a Sociological Perspective". Journal of Health and Social Behavior. American Sociological Association. 8: 177 – via JSTOR.
  7. ↑ Leffler, W. K. (1976, July 11). Gay rights demonstration at the Democratic National Convention, New York City [Photograph]. U.S. News & World Report, United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division.
  8. ↑ Dennis, Jeffery (2015). What is Homosexuality Doing in Deviance?. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 172–188.
  9. ↑ Minton, Henry L. (January 1996). "Community Empowerment and the Medicalization of Homosexuality: Constructing Sexual Identities in the 1930s". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 6: 435–458 – via JSTOR.
  10. ↑ Hart, Graham; Wellings, Kaye (April 2002). "Sexual behaviour and its medicalisation: in sickness and in health". BMJ journals: 896–900.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 Ginsburg, Benson E.; Carter, Bonnie Frank (1987). Premenstrual Syndrome Ethical and Legal Implications in a Biomedical Perspective. Springer US. pp. 151–173.
  12. ↑ Zita, Jacquelyn N. (Spring 1988). "The Premenstrual Syndrome: "Dis-easing" the Female Cycle". Hypatia. 3: 78 – via JSTOR.
  13. ↑ Smith Rosenberg, C. (1973). "Puberty to menopause: The cycle of femininity in nineteenth-century America". Feminist Studies. 1: 58–72.
  14. ↑ Press, Marc P. (1983). "Premenstrual Stress Syndrome as a Defense in Criminal Cases". Duke Law Journal. 1983.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 Richardson, James T. (2004). Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe. Springer. pp. 510–527.
  16. ↑ Shapiro, Eli (1977). "Destructive Cultism". American Family Physician.
  17. ↑ Clark, John (1979). "Cult". Journal of the American Medical Association: 279–281.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Heitzeg, Nancy (Summer 2008). "Race, class and legal risk in the United States: youth of color and collud ing systems of social control". Forum on Public Policy.
Retrieved from "https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=The_Process_of_Medicalization_of_Deviance_Among_Minority_Groups_in_West&oldid=545303"