Thursday, January 21, 2010
Drugging the world, breaking the circle
An article in New Superstitionist, titled "How the US exports its mental illnesses", describes the medicalization of culture but misses the main point in a typically leftist way.
Nasty stuff indeed. But this isn't really a case of imposing an American culture on the rest of the world. Focus on this: "prolonged, deep sadness was often considered to be a personal hardship that builds character." That may be a modern Jap view, but it was also the American view of melancholy before Freud took over our elite culture in the 1950's.
Thus the problem isn't shrinks and drugmakers conspiring to infect the rest of the world with an American view of mental problems.
Rather, the problem is shrinks and drugmakers conspiring to break up natural healing processes in America and in the rest of the world. Neither Americans nor Japs nor anyone else can be allowed to build character; all must pop pills.
Kirmayer's original article is interesting, objective and humble .... qualities that are rarely seen in public science writing these days. ¶ 7:51 AM
IN THIS age of globalisation, you would expect people to value and be sensitive about their local differences and diversity. And few areas could be more critical than different peoples' understanding of the human mind when it comes to mental health and illness.
Laurence Kirmayer, director of the division of social and transcultural psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, had a front-row seat as GlaxoSmithKline launched its antidepressant Paxil in Japan in 2000. Kirmayer, an authority on the impact of cultural beliefs on mental illness, had been invited to a GSK-sponsored academic conference in Japan. It was only when he arrived that he realised the true agenda: the company wanted his knowledge to help it understand how cultural beliefs about illness can be changed.
The challenge GSK faced in the Japanese market was formidable. The nation did have a clinical diagnosis of depression - utsubyo - but it was nothing like the US version: it described an illness as devastating and as stigmatising as schizophrenia. Worse, at least for the sales prospects of antidepressants in Japan, it was rare. Most other states of melancholy were not considered illnesses in Japan. Indeed, the experience of prolonged, deep sadness was often considered to be a jibyo, a personal hardship that builds character. To make Paxil a hit, it would not be enough to corner the small market for people diagnosed with utsubyo. As Kirmayer realised, GSK intended to influence the Japanese understanding of sadness and depression at the deepest level.
"What I was witnessing was a multinational pharmaceutical corporation working hard to redefine narratives about mental health," Kirmayer said.
Nasty stuff indeed. But this isn't really a case of imposing an American culture on the rest of the world. Focus on this: "prolonged, deep sadness was often considered to be a personal hardship that builds character." That may be a modern Jap view, but it was also the American view of melancholy before Freud took over our elite culture in the 1950's.
Thus the problem isn't shrinks and drugmakers conspiring to infect the rest of the world with an American view of mental problems.
Rather, the problem is shrinks and drugmakers conspiring to break up natural healing processes in America and in the rest of the world. Neither Americans nor Japs nor anyone else can be allowed to build character; all must pop pills.
Kirmayer's original article is interesting, objective and humble .... qualities that are rarely seen in public science writing these days. ¶ 7:51 AM
