Biomedicine as a Folk Medicine for the Mentally Ill and Their Families: A Study in Reproducing Medical Prescription Outside the Hospital in Morocco

Volume 12|Issue 48| Spring 2024 |Articles

Abstract

Through this study, I will explain how medical diagnosis became a tool for the medicalization of society, and through time, and with the development of bio–medicine in the shape of drugs, society moved to a more specific process of Pharmaceuticalization. Under these circumstances, medical drugs became the only means for sick people to have their freedom in society. Only after taking their prescription, can they remain socially active, or they will lose their pharmaceutical citizenship. The study draws on fieldwork completed in the mental health hospitals of Oujda and Tetouan, using an ethnographic approach. Through participant observation and interviews, I seek to understand how patients and their families rationalize their use of drugs and prescriptions against medical advice, whether they change the dosage, manipulate the process, or suspend the prescription entirely.

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