Week 6 - Joshua Vandermeyde

Joshua Vandermeyde

Week 6

A03

This week’s reading’s explored the nuanced topic of mental illness in America. In the reading, “Pathologizing Everyday Life,” the author talked about how mental illnesses are being increasingly medicalized, with the number of medical diagnoses increasing dramatically with the increase in the classification of certain symptoms as being medical diseases. This is not necessarily a good thing, as a medical diagnosis involves the patient to go through “medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment,” and the patient might not have anything medically wrong with them. Through the expansion of the diagnosis of “mental illnesses” pharmaceutical and other medical companies are able to expand their consumer base to people who might not actually need medication to help with the disorder they have. Many disorders can be caused by learned behaviors from the environment you grew up in or are surrounded by as discussed in the Americanization of mental illness article. In this way, Americans are bringing the pathologization of everyday life to the rest of the world. I believe that this boom in diagnoses in mental illness can also be partly attributed to the increase in medical information available to the general public through the internet. When someone is able to look up what they are feeling and find a medical diagnosis for what is wrong with them along with many support groups for that same diagnosis immediately, it can be very relieving. But, this self diagnosis that can later be confirmed by a medical professional might not be an accurate diagnosis and can affect how they are feeling if they project other symptoms from the diagnosis onto their condition whether or not they already had them. The internet could also be partially responsible for the spread of American ideas about mental illnesses as well because many people from other countries have access to these ideas through the internet. Overall, mental illness is a growing problem, and the people suffering need proper support.

Question:

Where do we draw the line between medical and non-medical diagnoses? Most cases fall under a range and even if the original problem is not medical, it could develop into one.

Resources:

Watters, E. (2010, January 8). The Americanization of Mental Illness. The New York

Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html

Wasserman, T., & Wasserman, L. D. (2016). Depathologizing psychopathology: the
neuroscience of mental illness and its treatment. Switzerland: Springer.

[Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved May 7, 2017, from http://www.goodtherapy.org/what-is-good-therapy.html