Psychiatrification

The practice of framing life problems, social conflicts, and political dissent as psychiatric disorders requiring diagnosis, treatment, or institutional control. It pathologizes poverty as “adjustment disorder,” protest as “oppositional defiant disorder,” and spiritual experiences as “psychosis.” Common in mental health advocacy and in countries with strong biomedical psychiatry, psychiatrification expands the domain of psychiatry into every aspect of human suffering. Critics argue it medicalizes social issues, depoliticizes dissent, and shifts focus from structural change to individual treatment. It is a form of epistemic colonization.

Psychiatrification Example: “The student activists were psychiatrified by the university administration: referrals to counseling, not dialogue. Their critique of administration policies was reframed as ‘emotional dysregulation.’”

Psychiatrification by Abzugal June 5, 2026