The Culture of Our Discontent: Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness - Hardcover

Small, Meredith F.

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9780309100663: The Culture of Our Discontent: Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0309100666 ISBN 13: 9780309100663

Publisher: Joseph Henry Press, 2006

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By many estimations, the Western medical model of mental health is dangerously incomplete. If we step outside of the traditional disease model there are many new and different ways to understand, treat, and even accept mental illness. Culture--how we collectively live, interact, and view the world--frames our mental outlook. Arguably, culture even creates it. Western culture, for example, has completely embraced the medical model of mental illness. We quickly turn to physicians if we are unhappy or otherwise mentally discomfited, seeking solutions on a prescription pad. We expect brain chemistry to be at the root of any mental malady, forgetting the deeply entwined relationship between the biology of the brain and the environment in which we think, feel, and react. But every culture has a different view of the world, a lens through which normal or insane are viewed and defined. Anthropologist Meredith Small contends there is much to be learned from stepping away from the traditional Western medical model to explore and embrace alternative perspectives. By examining culture itself, rather than focusing on biology and medicine, we can fully understand the nature of our discontent. Looking at social, evolutionary, cross-cultural, and nutritional influences, Small deconstructs mental illnesses like depression and anxiety conditions that appear in different forms and for different reasons within the culture that defines them. By rethinking assumptions and questioning standard treatment programs, she helps us gradually relax our grip on the medical model to discover a new perspective on mental illness.

Table of Contents

Front Matter
Introduction
1 The Rooted Sorrow
2 The Evolution of the Mind
3 The Minds of Monkeys
4 The Happy Fat
5 States of Mind
6 Running Amok in a Brain Fog
7 Cursed and Haunted
8 A Happy Ending
Notes
References
Acknowledgements
Index

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From the Author:

You’ve written several other books. What leads you to a topic? Was there a particular reason you wanted to write this book?

Hmmmm. I came to this book after reading an article in the New York Times Magazine on the mental condition latah, a culture-specific syndrome of Southeast Asia. I was also struck by the growing number of people close to me, people with seemingly good lives, who were having problems and taking prescribed drugs.

You’re a professor and a professional writer and journalist. Do you find these careers to be compatible, even complementary, or is it actually hard to do both at the same time?

I find them very compatible. When I teach I often talk in depth about the research of other people I have written about, and I think I know their work better because I had to know everything about it to do a journalism piece. I think journalism keeps me up to date on all science issues.

What’s your favorite season? Why?

Fall... Because the leaves turns, and people light fires and you can smell the smoke, and I knit so that’s a great time for making sweaters, and it’s be best season for long walks....

About the Author:

Maredith Small is a professor of anthropology at Cornell University. She is the author of four previous books, most notably Our Babies, Ourselves. She writes regularly for magazines such as Discover, Natural History, Scientific American, and New Scientist and is a frequent contributor to television and radio.

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