turning a life problem into a diagnosis so someone can sell you the cure.
means the process by which ordinary human conditions or behaviors get redefined as medical problems requiring treatment.
from coined in the 1970s by sociologists like Peter Conrad and Irving Zola studying how psychiatry and medicine kept expanding their jurisdiction over deviance, from drunkenness to shyness, reframing moral or social issues as biological ones.
add hd diagnosis surge — us childhood diagnoses rose over 40 percent between 2003 and 2011
menopause treatment — turned into hormone therapy market worth billions annually
restless leg syndrome — virtually unknown until a 2003 pharma ad campaign named it
grief and dsm-5 — 2013 edition removed bereavement exclusion from major depression diagnosis