Abstract

Ivan Illich’s claim that the medical establishment has become a major threat to health as a result the medicalization of life and the development of medical iatrogenesis (negative medical effects on health) appears to have been accurately prophetic. Expensive, specialised, intensive, technological and professionalised care has developed to the point that the general community is now unable to understand and deal with ordinary life processes such as pain, suffering and death. Although the medical profession is closely implicated in the development of this situation, along with capitalist and financial imperatives and institutional domination, ”Today’s major pathogen…[is] the pursuit of the healthy body” (Illich, 1986, p. 1325).