Samoleczenie: medykalizacja czy demedykalizacja? Granice władzy medycyny
Self-care: Medicalization or demedicalization? The limits of medicine’s power

Summary/Abstract: Nowadays, changes in people’s health behaviours, a growing preoccupation with one’s own health, and the application of non-medical autonomous practices in the health domain can be regarded as symptoms of demedicalization. In this article some arguments are elaborated to illustrate the thesis that self-care and self-medication, coming from different macro-social and economic conditions, are still indicators of medicalization, but at the micro- and mezzo-level of society. Individuals apply medical knowledge and solutions in their own way and filter them through spontaneous actions within both real and virtual groups. Thus in this article self-care is treated as symptom of “auto--medicalization” manifested in actions like: seeking medical knowledge via non-medical paths; using OTC drugs and dietary supplements without professional advice; and self-administration of conventional, non-conventional and controversial or even illegal therapies. The attitude coined as “escaping medicalization” is also examined. The article shows the major role played by the “new media” in producing “naïve experts” – giving individuals the possibility to share their health problems anonymously and to acquire lay knowledge, which “becomes more objective” and may compete with medical knowledge. Acquiring lay knowledge by sharing it with others and using it to make one’s own decisions gives individuals a strong conviction that their health behaviours are independent of the medical perspective, while in fact individuals, in choosing ‘virtual’ solutions, are unconsciously practicing “auto-medicalization”.

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