The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary

The summary of the selected article appears at the bottom of the page. In order to get back to the contents of the issue this article belongs to you have to access the link from the title. In order to see all the articles of the archive which have as author/co-author one of the authors mentioned below, you have to access the link from the author's name.

 
       
         
    STUDIA PHILOSOPHIA - Issue no. Special Issue / 2013  
         
  Article:   THE VIRTUES AND LIMITS OF THE BIOMEDICAL MODEL FOR INTERPRETING BEHAVIOURS RELATED TO SUBSTANCE MISUSE AND ADDICTION.

Authors:  ION COPOERU.
 
       
         
  Abstract:  

During the last centuries, medical models gained ascendance over other models for interpreting behaviors related to illness and suffering, which have been eventually almost entirely supplanted. In time, the medical model became one of the norms for the self-assessment of human behavior in general. Our paper emphasizes the idea that, in connection with the social phenomenon of substance misuse and addiction, medicalization and medical practices have an ambivalent role to play in society: on the one hand, they help connecting with our fellow people in the process of taking care, health-wise, of them, and on the other hand, they possess an invasive, controlling and disciplinarian force. The medicalization solution is nevertheless salutary in situations when all kinds of marginalized populations are still considered undeserving of medical treatment.

Key words: substance misuse; addiction; biomedical model; medicalization; ambivalence

 
         
     
         
         
      Back to previous page