Pathologizing infancy: children under control

Abstract

Many children are subjected to a therapeutic practice that excessively medicalizes infancy, propitiating that various behaviours and difficulties, especially those related to school, should be approached as illnesses, syndromes or disturbances. This pathologizing view seems to dominate the thinking of professionals, as much in the area of education as in the area of health. This paper aims to explore the control mechanisms that promote and sustain this way of thinking, and considers its implications on the life of children, whose destiny is often marked by labels, discrimination and contention. In order to develop alternatives that can warrant a freer and healthier childhood, there is an urgent need to create new perspectives and to link psychodrama with other disciplines.