The medicalization of the human condition: pathologizing natural discomfort

Assuming that discomfort is always a problem leads to pathologizing everyday life.

It will not seem strange to hear that we suffer from "post-holiday syndrome" if we feel down in the dumps after returning from a trip and suddenly find ourselves back in the routine or, on the contrary, that we suffer from "free time syndrome" if we go on vacation and find it hard to relax because we are used to a hectic pace of life.

These labels, although they are used normally and may seem harmless, are a reflection of how our society has become intolerant of discomfort, pain and uncertainty..

This has led us to pathologize moods, feelings and emotions that are inherent to the human condition such as sadness, anger, stress, problems in adolescence or loneliness, among others, and that could be more related to "feeling bad" than to "suffering from a disease" (Pérez, Bobo and Arias, 2013).

The paradox of health

In addition to the above to what we call the "health paradox", i.e., what in thethat is, what occurs in the most developed countries when the definition of health is very objective and feeds back to the growth of the problems declared in medical consultations.

This happens, for example, when the description of symptoms to identify a disease or disorder is very specific and involves a series of "symptoms" that can also appear in the face of difficult or conflictive situations.

Thus, it is common to hear someone say they have "depression" for not saying they are "sad," or that they have "anxiety" for not saying they are nervous. Similarly, the more resources in the health care system are expanded, the more people say they are sick.

Thus, this mechanism that feeds back the perception of illness in the face of normal reactions to everyday adversities is based on the assumption that there are no people who are sick. is based on the assumption that there are no healthy people, but only undiagnosed sick people (Orueta et al., 2003). (Orueta et al., 2011), given that somehow, at one time or another, we would all fit into some diagnostic category.

What do we mean by health and happiness?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health no longer as the absence of disease, but as the attainment of absolute well-being, which in a way ensures the establishment of this extreme pathologization of discomfort, in addition to a search for immediate happiness and an excessive consumption of sedative drugs that prevent us from having to endure small doses of suffering.

This is due to the unattainable place in which the bases of the standard of health for the human being are established, whose natural condition is variability.The natural condition of which is variability in mood and causes anything that is not perceived as "absolute wellbeing" to be considered "pathological".

However, the problem is not in the search for happiness or not, it is that we have already been taught where to find it, and we, without questioning anything at all, have believed it. Consumption, advances in technology and science, and individualism are the three great paths that, according to our society, we must follow to find happiness (Lipovetsky and Charles, 2006). All three are part of the material and are intertwined with each other, being at the same time, small portions of happiness and intermittent unhappiness..

On the one hand, they offer us moments of comfort and pleasure, and on the other, they make us feel restlessness and uneasiness. For example, they give us access to remedies for pain, privileged purchases or useful technological advances, but at the same time they make us want more and more and feel that it is never enough, thus generating feelings of dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

Thus, buying in the absence of need as a method of evasion, lacking a critical approach to medical science and becoming more individualistic, demanding and sensitive to frustration, has turned us into sometimes happy, but always unsatisfied consumerists..

An excess of medicalization

The field of mental health is a good example of all of the above. In this field, despite recent efforts to reverse this situation, a Biological perspective for the treatment of human "malaise" has been abused and misused.

This This leads to excessive medicalization as a means of combating "problems" that in reality are part of the fluctuations of the human body. which in reality are part of the normal fluctuations of life, providing immediate, albeit fleeting, well-being. In this way, we are losing autonomy, becoming accustomed to taking a passive attitude towards problems.

Thus, perceiving pain, restlessness or anxiety as illnesses allows us to label them and, consequently, to have a treatment available, i.e., a solution that lies outside and therefore does not involve us directly. As Conrad said in 2007, this is a way of transforming human conditions into treatable illnessesIn this case, science and money go hand in hand and, therefore, this discipline ends up being an economic enterprise (Smith, 2005).

Nowadays, as a general rule, the treatment sought before "the disease" arrives is usually reduced to drugs, and these act more as a "floater" than as a "rescue boat" when in reality what we need is to familiarize ourselves with cold water and learn to swim. At the end of the day, palliating the consequences of a problem makes it more bearable and bearable, but it does not make it go away.It helps to momentarily forget that such a problem exists.

For example, it will be much easier to think that a child is unruly and disobedient because he/she has an Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) than to think that such behavioral agitation is due to dysfunctional family dynamics (Talarn, Rigat & Carbonell, 2011). Then, the solution to a symptom perhaps given more by a family problem than by a disorder, will be found in an amphetamine drug and not in the questioning of the beliefs that until today have guided their behavior as parents.

New therapeutic perspectives

Ultimately, as a society we should understand uncertainty and suffering as a part of life in order to be able to in order to re-normalize problematic situations that have already been medicalized (Perez et al, 2013), and which, moreover, could derive from the interaction between the individual and his or her context and history (Bianco and Figueroa, 2008). However, this is complicated as long as any lament continues to be interpreted from a medical perspective, as this is economically and not scientifically profitable (Talarn et al., 2011).

Even so, it is true that this problem is beginning to be made visible and therapies such as therapies such as the "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy" (ACT), whose main premise is towhose main premise is to normalize discomfort, understanding it as a product of the human condition. This exposes how society teaches us to resist suffering that is normal, and how this resistance can generate real pathological suffering.

Its objective, therefore, is to get rid of the avoidant and destructive pattern generated by the "feel-good culture" that leads us to avoid a pain that is part of our life cycle and helps us to grow (Soriano and Salas, 2006).

In my opinion, it is urgent to make this type of therapy more visible, because it is difficult for us to open our eyes if it is still beneficial to make us believe that the solution lies in closing them. So we should support the growth of this new philosophy, because as long as we continue to be taught to be sick, it is difficult for us to open our eyes. as long as we continue to be taught to be treatable patients, we will continue to be prepared to consume, and not to take an active and not to take an active attitude towards life's conflictive situations (Lobo, 2006).