Neoliberalism and the Commodification of Mental Health

Abstract

This article contributes to the existing literature on neoliberalism as an ideological hegemonic project by addressing how the image of social reality it advances normalizes the medicalization of human life. Because success, virtue, and happiness in a neoliberal market society are often associated with material wealth, prestige, and “coming out on top,” it follows that normalcy itself is typically conceived along these reified objectives. Acquiring services and/or products that might aid people to meet these results is thus viewed as benevolent and perhaps even indispensable in the pursuit of a fulfilling and productive life. What this also suggests is that integration, mental health, and human well-being become largely functions of consumerism. We address how an emphasis on medicalization, particularly the use of psychotropic drugs, can be traced to the psychopharmacological revolution of the mid-twentieth century and its obsession with situating illness within the individual. We then address how this obsession with medicalization and the tendency to treat “mental illness” as a problem within the individual continues to be supported within the prevailing neoliberal logic that downplays the social realm, treats individuals as self-contained agents, and pathologizes thoughts and behaviors that deviate from what the market defines as functional, productive, or desirable.