Medicalization in contemporary times:

a dialogue between existential phenomenology and psychopathology

Abstract

This brief essay aims to bring to the discussion a look at contemporary medicalization and its overlap with phenomenological psychopathology. It brings the perspective of medicalization and some of the various factors present there, from the perception of non-belonging to the search to establish the other as a reference, culminating in the self-isolation present in the present day. A no less important aspect concerns the current trivialization of the normal and the pathological which, most of the time, imprints on this other the inability to walk among the various requests originating from the sociocultural and historical niche, inciting emotional and existential fragility and vulnerabilities . Finally, and not least, Phenomenological Psychopathology in its basic characteristic of looking at what suffers beyond the diagnostic hypothesis or nosological picture, allowing us to recognize the person in their uniqueness and very own way of being themselves, beyond the requirements that the environment brings. It is concluded that reflecting on these themes is to embark on the perspective that we seek, in the relationship with this other who suffers, to understand the pluridimensionality of existing in its basic aspect, human being and his humanity. May we reflect that life provides us with incredible learning, among which we believe that the most fundamental is that people seek the meaning of life. Let us remember, however, that life has no meaning, life is meaning.