verb
- treated or regarded as a disease or disorder; classified as abnormal or unhealthy
Usage: British spelling (American: pathologized); past tense and past participle of pathologise; often used in critical or academic contexts to describe the medicalization of normal behavior
Examples
- The condition was pathologised by early psychiatrists despite being a normal variation of human behavior.
- Critics argue that grief has been pathologised in modern diagnostic manuals.
- Homosexuality was once pathologised by the medical establishment.
- The researchers pathologised everyday anxiety, turning common stress into a clinical disorder.
- Social movements have challenged how certain identities have been pathologised throughout history.