Interdiction and medicalization of people with mental disorders: a case study from the documentary Britney X Spears

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7213/psicolargum.40.111.AO14

Abstract

This article discusses the themes of legal interdiction, especially the process of curatorship, and medicalization of people with mental disorders, based on the case study of the documentary Britney X Spears (Carr, 2021). The occurrence of these topics is investigated by the influence of post-modern Western values, such as individualism. In this scenario, through the focus on ideals such as productivity and high responsibility attributed to the individual for their choices, the new social configuration also shapes medical and legal processes. The work aims to reflect on the subjective consequences of the process of legal interdiction and the medicalization of life in people with mental disorders, by investigating its manifestations from the facts exposed in the feature film. The method used to study the material was a documentary analysis compared to the literature. The results obtained point to medicalization and interdiction, from the judicialization of health, as processes linked to the post-modern context. Moreover, both phenomena studied play roles that reinforce the stigmas related to psychopathologies, from a biologicist reductionism - by the biomedical perspective - and a reductionism of causality - by the legal scope. The practical evidence of how interdiction and medicalization processes perpetuate automatically incapacitating notions of people with mental disorders was explored by what was portrayed in the documentary about the artist's Britney Jean Spears experience. It is concluded that in the post-modern context, behaviors that generate psychological suffering are reinforced, and biomedical and legal actions play the contradictory role of sustaining such behaviors while reproducing stereotypes of psychopathologies through mechanisms of power. 

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Published

2022-11-02

How to Cite

Coser, M. Ísis, da Rocha Camargo, M. E., Müller Lourenço, G., & Menegatti, C. L. (2022). Interdiction and medicalization of people with mental disorders: a case study from the documentary Britney X Spears. Psicologia Argumento, 40(111). https://doi.org/10.7213/psicolargum.40.111.AO14