José Luis Marín, psychiatrist: “We are medicalizing normal emotions”
The author of ‘Mental Health Does Not Exist. Health Does’ argues that sadness, grief, and fear have been turned into clinical diagnoses.
Physician José Luis Marín warns about the growing medicalization of natural human emotions. “When you turn an emotion into a disease, you completely change the framework. It is no longer something you feel and move through. It becomes something you have, a condition you suffer from, something that must be eliminated as quickly as possible,” the psychotherapist said in an interview with AS.
According to Marín, this phenomenon has deep consequences. It changes how people understand their own suffering and reduces their ability to learn from their emotions.
The psychiatrist also points to the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in shaping diagnoses. “Some diagnoses appeared suspiciously close to the drugs designed to treat them. The industry seeks to expand markets, and at times marketing is disguised as medical knowledge,” he notes.
“We are medicalizing normal emotions”
As a result, prolonged sadness, unresolved grief, or anxiety in difficult situations come to be seen as pathologies requiring immediate intervention, rather than human experiences that need time, understanding, and social support.
Marín emphasizes that truly preventing and understanding suffering requires looking beyond symptoms. Social context, upbringing, and environment are essential. In his book, ‘Mental Health Does Not Exist. Health Does’ (La salud mental no existe. La salud sí), he explains how education, parenting, and social structures shape emotional health, and how the medicalization of normal emotions diverts attention from deeper, preventable issues. For him, the key lies in restoring listening and human connection rather than multiplying diagnoses and medications.
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