ABSTRACT
High rates of medicalisation may be indicative of systemic problems in Western Society and consequently the notion of the population itself medicalising problems is an increasingly important aspect to the debate. It has been argued that alienation within contemporary society is increasing and has become manifest in the medicalisation of social problems; 'New forms of illness are being called into being, and boundaries of existing illness definitions extended within biomedicine and culture at large’. Treating distress as mental illness in a primary care environment would constitute the medicalisation of a normal human response to adverse life events. The notion of patients actually seeking the medicalisation of their emotional and/or personal problems has often been constructed by GPs in terms of a social aetiology. The traditional power imbalance between GPs and their patients appears to have changed. It no longer seems to be GPs medicalising problems but rather an attempt to manage demand.
