Thingification by Pharma company

Thingification has been honed to a high art by the pharmaceutical
industry, where everyday emotions like sadness, grief, fear, and suffering
are transformed into codified disease. From the industry’s point of
130 What Matters in Medicine
view, the purported chemical imbalance or genetic flaw that underlies
such emotions not only can but should be treated. Where causal proof
or benefit lacks sturdy scientific proof, direct marketing to the consumer
picks up the slack.
There is a way to see the world other than as categories of morbidity
and mortality, digitalized data and discrete behaviors, probabilities and
outcomes. This view relies on emotion and the senses. It seeks context
and connection. It expresses itself through anecdote, vignette, the use of
metaphor, and tales of survival. It is captured—if
at all—in
case reports,
reflective journaling, and the literature of medicine. It blossoms and endures
without having a name, or needing one.