Portugal in the European Context, vol.III

Abstract

Medicalisation indicates a change in the forms of legitimisation, bringing the emergence of new rationalities in the field of health and a gradual convergence between rationalization from above i.e. the penetration of the overall cultural model by new forms of legitimisation – and rationalization from below – i.e. a penetration by dominant forms of legitimisation at an individual and sub-cultural level. Within this framework of change, the most recent scientific and technological developments in health have brought new social dynamics to the dissemination of medicalisation. Predictive medicine – spurred by new breakthroughs in genetics and molecular biology – is creating new areas in everyday health and sickness, transferring to the medical sphere, not only the management of the present but also the present management of eventuality of future risks. It is the discovery of genetic risk. With this other perspective, the present and future of health possibilities (depending on the decoding of the past) set out on a trajectory of uncertainty that enshrines the social dominance and hegemony of the medicalisation paradigm.