Dispositivos de transformação do sofrimento em adoecimento numa empresa

Abstract

The conception of device as an institutional mechanism reaches a new landing and attitude so that a specific purpose may be attained. Mechanisms that transform suffering into illness are identified. Workers, health professionals and managers in the service sector in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, have been interviewed. The disguise of suffering, the maintenance and regulation of morbidity, and the construction of an identity as a diseased person constitute a set of devices. These mechanisms were articulated within the development of Neuroscience. The classical meaning of cure has been substituted by the psychiatrization" through an individualizing interpretation and over-medicalization. These mechanisms have been inserted with the transition movement from 'disciplinary societies' to 'control societies'. They even promoted firm control over the body, predominance in private life spaces and workers' culpability for the health-illness-care process. Consequently, the transformation of suffering into illness is enhanced.