Deviance and Medicalization

This classic text on the nature of deviance, originally published in 1980, is now reissued with a new Afterword by the authors. In this new edition of their award-winning book, Conrad and Schneider investigate the origins and contemporary consequences of the medicalization of deviance. They examine specific cases-madness, alcoholism, opiate addiction, homosexuality, delinquency, and child abuse-and draw out their theoretical and policy implications. In a new chapter, the authors address developments in the last decade-including AIDS, domestic violence, co-dependency, hyperactivity in children, and learning disabilities-and they discuss the fate of medicalization in the 1990s with the changes in medicine and continued restrictions on social services.