The commodification of psychological suffering

Abstract

This article reflects on the medicalization of psychic suffering in order to understand that
process as part of a capitalist accumulation strategy. To do this, the first idea is that
capitalism is in a phase of an initial residual accumulation terminal (Veraza, 2011) in
which, psychic suffering is one of the aspects to expropriate and exploit. Second, the
economic policies implemented in Argentina are described; in the following sections, it
is particularized in the Alto Rio Negro valley and in the expropriation of livelihoods.
In the last section, we present the inter-capitalist dispute within the health sector and
medicalization as a means of repositioning the industrial fraction in that dispute from
three dimensions, the abstract universalization of diagnostic categories in health Mental;
The regulatory changes and the offensive against work.