(transitive) 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, Melanie Thernstrom, "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.
