CHOROBA JAKO PODSTAWA KONSTRUOWANIA NOWYCH TOŻSAMOŚCI W ZMEDYKALIZOWANYM ŚWIECIE
A DISEASE AS A FOUNDATION OF CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW IDENTITIES IN THE MEDICALIZED WORLD

Summary/Abstract: The process of medicalization has been expanding over last few decades and it can be described by new aspects and dimensions (i.e. growing importance of lay persons as active medicalizers, the farmaceuticalization, effects of biotechnological progress). It changes the image of the contemporary disease not only in medical dimension but ‒ first of all ‒ in psychosocial aspect becoming the foundation of new constructs of the sick role and identities related to it. The aim of this paper is to depict those aspects of the medicalization that influence on changes in the definition and performance of the sick role, interactions between “the sick” and their social surrounding as wel as in their concepts and pictures of their selves. In the paper results of own research are evoked to illustrate the elaboration of topic. In the theoretical layer the paper presents critical view of adequacy of the Talcott Parsons’ concept of the sick role in relation to the contemporary process of medicalization. As a construction frame an interactionist concept of picture of the self and concept of the self by Turner was used and the process of medicalization has been presented in the historical perspective as well as in the context of practices of Michel Foucault biopower.

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