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 casesmadness, alcoholism, opiate addiction, homosexuality, delinquency, and child abuseand draw out their theoretical and policy implications. In a new chapter, the authors address developments in the last decadeincluding AIDS, domestic violence, co-dependency, hyperactivity in children, and learning disabilitiesand they discuss the fate of medicalization in the 1990s with the changes in medicine and continued restrictions on social services.