Week 6- Anthony Canavesio A01

International mental disease classification has changed drastically since the start of western psychology. “The Americanization of Mental Illness” by Ethan Watters examines how western civilization in the most recent years has been working towards classifying mental diseases and setting a standard diagnosis to generalize a mental disease. This can be an issue for example a Japanese doctor working with a bunch of patients with an eating disorder found that when the term anorexia became popular in mainstream society that his patients increased drastically. This shows how popular topics in health that are discussed in the media can cause other people to develop these illness’.I found this very interesting as social trends, and preconceived ideas of a disease really shape how one experiences an illness. This really set off a light bulb in my head because it made me think of all the times I was sick and experiencing symptoms. Was I experiencing those symptoms because that's what I was told to be experiencing. This also evoked a lot of emotion out of me as I feel our current way of western medicine has in a sense become medicine for the masses as they often generalize the way an illness is suppose to play out.

Another key topic this article brings to light is the idea that the way western medicine classifies mental illness as a disease, and the ill effects it has had. People are often said to view those with genetic mental disease’ worse than those who developed a mental disease during an earlier trauma in life. I personally think that is is sick that someone would think that the brain of some with PTSD is better than the brain of someone with schizophrenia. This really shows that as a society we put a lot of stigmatizes around certain diseases. The way western medicine has been generalizing disease’ has had an affect internationally also. Other countries are beginning to pick up our nasty stigmatizems which shows how the push for western globalization globally has had its negative effects too. Western medicine endorses stigmatizing mental disease, since we can't see it or really get a grasp of what it is, Watters explains how developing countries are blowing us out of the water in terms of providing adequate care to the mentally ill. Having many family member who suffer from schizophrenia this especially hits close to home for me. If we marginalize the mentally ill and make it seem as if they are irrelevant we are not fixing the problem, we are just curbing them to the side. By making mental illness in terms of science we have stripped away all of the cultural justifications of mental illness things like religion brought about.

Mental Health Therapy and More. (2015, August 27). Retrieved October 28, 2017, from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/613545149206067816/

Watters, E. (2010, January 09). The Americanization of Mental Illness. Retrieved October 29, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html

My question from this reading is , since we have detremined that the western approach to mental health is wrong, how do we find the happy median where old world ideas and western outlooks are blended into one?