pathologize

verb

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

   “Near-synonym: medicalize”

   “Some childhood behavior has been pathologized as attention-deficit disorder.”

   “Many pain patients have had doctors who pathologized them, told them their pain was unreal.”

   “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.”

   “My automatic reaction was to deal with the anxiety he evoked in me by pathologizing him as paranoid and obsessive compulsive.”