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.
