{"id":18485,"date":"2013-05-22T14:40:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T21:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?page_id=18485"},"modified":"2024-01-05T18:23:15","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T23:23:15","slug":"pathologizing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/pathologizing\/","title":{"rendered":"Pathologizing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-37030 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/mother-takes-goth-daughter-to-therapy-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"A mother and her teen daughter sit on a couch while a therapist asks questions.\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/mother-takes-goth-daughter-to-therapy-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/mother-takes-goth-daughter-to-therapy.jpg 724w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Pathologizing<\/strong><\/span> is the practice of seeing a symptom as indication of a disease or disorder. In mental health, the term is often used to indicate over-diagnosis or the refusal to accept certain behavior as normal.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What Is Pathologizing?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Some critics inside and outside of the mental health field argue that therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists tend to over-pathologize normal behavior. This can lead to over-diagnosis and excessive use of psychoactive drugs. For example, some advocates have argued that the increasing numbers of children diagnosed with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/learn-about-therapy\/issues\/adhd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">attention deficit hyperactivity (ADHD)<\/a> serve as evidence that people in the helping professions tend to pathologize normal childhood behavior.<\/p>\n<p>Other examples of mental health professionals pathologizing may include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Telling a person that all of his or her relationship problems are due to his or her mental health disorder<\/li>\n<li>Refusing to answer questions and telling a person that his or her distrust of the process is part of a mental health problem<\/li>\n<li>Overuse of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/psychotropic-medication.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">psychotropic medications<\/a> for conditions that may not require such treatment<\/li>\n<li>The use of a diagnosis to control people, particularly children<\/li>\n<li>Treating noncompliance with recommendations as evidence of a psychiatric disorder<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Risks of Pathologizing<\/strong><\/h2>\n<div class=\"content-fatwidget align-right\">\n\t<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/find-therapist.html\" target=\"_blank\">Find a Therapist<\/a><\/h2>\n\t<form action=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/search-redirect.html\" method=\"get\">\n\n\t\t\t<input required name=\"search[zipcode]\" placeholder=\"Enter ZIP or City\" class=\"inline-input\" type=\"text\" \/>\n\n\n\t\t\t<input type=\"submit\" name=\"TOS agreement\" value=\" \" class=\"inline-btn\" title=\"Search\" onclick=\"ga('send', 'event', 'FAT Widget', 'Submit Search', 'Sidebar', {nonInteraction: true});\" \/>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/advanced-search.html\" title=\"Advanced Search\" onclick=\"ga('send', 'event', 'FAT Widget', 'Advanced Search', 'Sidebar', {nonInteraction: true});\" >Advanced Search<\/a>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<p>While some people&#8217;s behavior may indeed evidence a medical or mental health condition, no single condition or disorder can affect every single behavior or thought a person has, and pathologizing tends to negate the feelings, needs, and thoughts of people with mental health diagnoses.<\/p>\n<p>Pathologizing can also, paradoxically, cause mental health issues to be treated less seriously. If large numbers of people in a population have a particular diagnosis, then the condition cannot be that serious. Treatment providers who pathologize their clients rather than listening may see less compliance with treatment recommendations and may not make accurate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychpedia\/diagnosis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">diagnoses<\/a>. Pathologizing can also paralyze a person and make it difficult for him or her to make lifestyle changes. For example, if a psychiatrist tells a person that his or her difficulties in his\/her marriage are due solely to his\/her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/learn-about-therapy\/issues\/depression\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">depression<\/a>, he\/she might be less likely to work on the marriage or leave an abusive spouse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Horwitz, A. V., &amp; Wakefield, J. C. (2007). <em>The loss of sadness: How psychiatry transformed normal sorrow into depressive disorder<\/em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press.<\/li>\n<li>The Irish Times &#8212; All in our heads: Have we taken psychiatry too far? (n.d.). <em>CCHR International RSS<\/em>. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.cchrint.org\/tag\/pathologizing<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pathologizing is the practice of seeing a symptom as indication of a disease or disorder. In mental health, the term is often used to indicate over-diagnosis or the refusal to accept certain behavior as normal. What Is Pathologizing? Some critics inside and outside of the mental health field argue that therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists tend [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2474,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"psychpedia.php","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-18485","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}