Definition.
Pathology assumes a disease-based orientation to symptoms. For instance, if a person hears voices, a pathologizing approach assumes that this person has a mental illness, perhaps schizophrenia.
Non-pathologizing approaches, however, might consider that hearing voices is miraculous, as with the young Joan of Arc who took her orders from saints and an archangel. Alternatively, hearing voices may be an expression of creativity, present in authors who hear the voices of their characters. In active imagination, one deliberately seeks to hear the voices of one’s complexes.
Pathology’s approach is valuable to the degree that it helps us identify and treat disease, but we must take care not to pathologize phenomena merely because they are unfamiliar or distressing. In my own research, I caution against pathologizing dissociative processes. While it is true that profound dissociation that can impede healthy functioning — for instance, in dissociative identity disorder — dissociation can also facilitate creativity and help us maintain appropriate role-boundaries in our lives.