ENTRE A SOBRECARGA E OS PSICOFÁRMACOS: a medicalização do sofrimento docente

Abstract

This study analyzed the medicalization of teachers’ suffering and its implications for teachers’ health and pedagogical practice. The phenomenon is understood as the result of historical and social processes that transform pedagogical and emotional difficulties into biomedical issues. The research, qualitative, exploratory, and bibliographic in nature, was based on publications from 2018 to 2025, including classical works by Illich (1975), Foucault (1987), Moysés and Collares (1992; 2013), and Conrad (2007), which provide the theoretical foundation for the concept of medicalization. Among the contemporary studies analyzed are Deffaveri et al. (2020), Calado et al. (2021), Souza et al. (2021), Motta (2023), Brandão and Laguna (2025),and Chaves and dos Anjos (2025), which address the use of psychotropic drugs, mental health, and teachers’ suffering. The results indicate that medicalization has operated as a strategy of survival, allowing teachers to remain in the classroom while concealing the structural causes of their distress. It was found that self-medication and the indiscriminate use of psychotropic drugs reinforce individual accountability and pharmaceutical dependence, whereas the lack of critical training on mental health contributes to the silencing of teachers’ suffering. It is concluded that overcoming the medicalization logic requires policies for professional valorization, institutional care actions, and the integration of the pharmacist in interdisciplinary practices of health and education.