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Pathology vs Pathologize - What's the difference?

pathology | pathologize |

As a noun pathology

is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences.

As a verb pathologize is

to characterize as a pathology or disease; to characterize (a person) as suffering from a disease.

pathology

English

Noun

(pathologies)
  • (medicine) The branch of medicine concerned with the study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences.
  • The medical specialty that provides microscopy and other laboratory services (e.g., cytology, histology) to clinicians.
    • The surgeon sent a specimen of the cyst to the pathology department for staining and analysis to determine its histologic subtype.
  • Pathosis: any deviation from a healthy or normal structure or function; abnormality; illness or malformation.

    • Derived terms

    * pathologist * anatomical pathology * chemical pathology * cytopathology * experimental pathology * forensic pathology * histopathology * plant pathology * psychopathology

    Related terms

    * pathologic * pathological * pathobiology * pathophysiology

    Usage notes

    * Some house style guides for medical publications avoid the "illness" sense of pathology'' (disease, state of ill health) and replace it with ''pathosis''. The rationale is that the ''-ology'' form should be reserved for the "study of disease" sense and for the medical specialty that provides microscopy and other laboratory services (e.g., cytology, histology) to clinicians. This rationale drives similar usage preferences about ''etiology'' ("cause" sense versus "study of causes" sense), ''methodology'' ("methods" sense versus "study of methods" sense), and other ''-ology'' words. Not all such , because most physicians don't do so in their own speech (and the context makes clear the sense intended). Another limitation is that ''pathology'' meaning "illness" has an adjectival form (''pathologic''), but the corresponding adjectival form of ''pathosis'' (''pathotic'') is idiomatically missing from English (defective declension), so ''pathologic'' is obligate for both senses ("diseased" and "related to the study of disease"); this likely helps keep the "illness" sense of ''pathology'' in natural use (as the readily retrieved noun counterpart to ''pathologic in the "diseased" sense).

    pathologize

    English

    Alternative forms

    * pathologise

    Verb

    (pathologiz)
  • To characterize as a pathology or disease; to characterize (a person) as suffering from a disease.
  • :Some childhood behavior has been pathologized as attention-deficit disorder.
  • * 2001 Dec. 16, , " Pain, the Disease," New York Times (retrieved 12 July 2011):
    • Many pain patients have had doctors who pathologized them, told them their pain was unreal.
  • * 2007 July 23, Rachel Endo, " Inbox," Time :
    • To pathologize China's industries as corrupt not only reeks of centuries-old Yellow Peril rhetoric but also fails to acknowledge the shortcomings of transnational regulations.
  • * 2009 , Joseph G. Ponterotto et al.'', ''Handbook of Multicultural Counseling , ISBN 9781412964326, p. 142:
    • My automatic reaction was to deal with the anxiety he evoked in me by pathologizing him as paranoid and obsessive compulsive.