The psychosocial diagnosis of gender in public health: Propos and application through a case study

Abstract

In this article, we present the development of a methodological diagnostic tool for the field of public health from an interdisciplinary perspective that articulates the biological, psychological, and social dimensions of human health from a post-structuralist and feminist perspective and epistemology. In prior research, we have developed a methodology for the study of chronic pain without an organic cause, or fibromyalgia (FM), that we call the psychosocial diagnosis of gender. That work addresses the analysis of the research object itself and, above all, a critical reconceptualization of health in general. We have also used qualitative fieldwork methods (life stories, discussion groups, and documentary material) in our study of people diagnosed with FM. Here, we present the actual tool we use in the Psychosocial Diagnosis of Gender, using a case study that enacts a displacement of the clinical diagnosis of FM towards its articulation with the psychosocial diagnosis of gender.