Psychiatric diagnosis as rationalization of the homeless’ negative ontological classification

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/

Keywords:

Homelessness, Medicalization, Psychiatry, Rationalization, Social Work

Abstract

Since the late 20th century, intervention on homelessness became increasingly medicalized. Using fieldwork that consisted of more than 500 hours of direct observation in a medium-sized Portuguese city from 2010 to 2014, I discuss how social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, among other actors, understand homelessness as the result of a ontological-psychiatric limitation of each homeless individual. In this medicalized context, psychiatric diagnosis is an important intervention technique since it validates the collective judgment on each homeless individual’s abnormality. The official psychiatric diagnosis pronounced by a psychiatrist, rather than a moment of medical-scientific discovery of this abnormality, constitutes an instant in which a previous negative ontological classification is rationalized in medical-scientific terms. By procedures such as the psychiatric diagnosis, medicalization renders the structural features of homelessness invisible, thus operating to legitimize an unjust and unequal societal model that makes certain individuals homeless.

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Author Biography

  • João Aldeia, Universidade de Coimbra. Centre for Functional Ecology – Science for People & the Planet. Coimbra, Portugal

    Universidade Aberta. Departamento de Ciências Sociais e de
    Gestão. Lisboa, Portugal

Published

2024-08-26

Issue

Section

Original research articles

How to Cite

Aldeia, J. (2024). Psychiatric diagnosis as rationalization of the homeless’ negative ontological classification. Saúde E Sociedade, 33(2), e230126pt. https://doi.org/10.1590/