The Muted Desire for Well-Being and the Abuse of the Word “Normality” in Medicine

Abstract

Michael Foucault, a French philosopher—or more specifically a historian of systems of thought—is generally accepted as having been one of the most influential social theorist of the second half of the twentieth century. In his Birth of the Clinic, he provides a critical examination of the hospital environment, or better, of any form of hospitalization and institutionalization, and analyses the historical shift before and after the French revolution (Foucault 1963). Until then, hospices and care institutions were primarily run by ecclesiastical groups who were by tradition dedicated to curing the worldly and spiritual needs of men. Hospices were conceived as a place that provided care and shelter to the poor and emarginated members of society but, as recurring plagues afflicted the continent century over century, they gradually came to represent an isolation facility to host and isolate people with contagious disease, severe illness, or constituting a danger for the healthy part of the population.