Medicalization Of Mental Illness

4. From Mechanics’ perspective the meaning of mental illness is socially constructed in that those that diagnose an individual with mental illness are the primary and secondary groups around us. Mechanic says that in order for a physician to gain commitment from a patient refusing his diagnosed illnesses, the physicians tries to convince the family that the patient is in serious need for treatment, thereby, the physician tries to gain the support from the patient’s family to support his diagnosis of the patient. So, even if the patient refuses to accept the patient role and deny his perceived illness, this resistance is seen as further evidence that the individual is in fact exhibiting further symptoms of mental illness. If the patient fails …show more content…
Thereby, transformed behavior becomes redefined and seen as an issue that needs to be resolved through medication. For example, hyper kinesis was transformed and became known as known as ADHD. This strange coincidence is often seen when new drugs are developed and psychiatric institutions with a special interest manipulate (transform) a previous existing condition to make it appear as if though medicalization is needed to treat the individual. Thereby, those that benefit form this process of medicalization of behavior are pharmaceutical companies, or what Becker refers to as “moral entrepreneurs.” Moral entrepreneurs as described by Becker as those that seek to implement new rules that will influence a shift in thinking by ostracizing a certain group of people, yet, in their minds they believe that the new laws created will benefit everybody. Despite the intentions of pharmaceutical companies to manipulate this issue for profit, still, it has benefitted those that are actually suffering from things like depression and desperately need the medication to carry on with their lives. Describing deviant behavior as a medical problem allows certain things to be done that could not otherwise be done, such as presenting solutions that may involve cutting open the body or using psychoactive medications as a form of social control. Thus, from these viewpoints we see that mental illness is socially constructed, as it has been transformed for people to believe that it is the result of biochemical processes, and so the medicalization of behavior is used a form of social control to ostracize certain people and for moral entrepreneurs to profit from them. Ultimately, the medicalization of certain behaviors helps control behavior and distracts us from larger social issues (a form of social