The evolution of the concept of medicalization in the late twentieth century.

This article attempts to outline a history of the critique of medicalization that developed in the 1960s in the work of Thomas Szasz, R. D. Laing, Michael Foucault, and others that was applied in their work to medical and psychiatric theory and practice, the penal system, and public health systems. This article follows the development of Foucault's own work on "governmentality" that emphasized the individualization and internalization of the themes of medicalization and the application of these ideas by his disciples to contemporary medical developments. Finally, the author explores recent historiography in the history of medicine and public health that supports this thesis of individualization that both undermines and reconfigures the older notion of medicalization. Copyright 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.