> am i the only one who recalls that it was not by being beaten into
> submission that i was swayed but by being given persuasive, persistent
> arguments and, probably more importantly, admiring the people who were
> trying to "teach" me because they were good and decent people, people
> with principals.
btw, i forgot to mention that i think maria handled the situation more than admirably. she stood for some principals and refrained from engaging in a the ad hominem flamage. and that, i know from talking with maria, is because she knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of flamage here.
on that note, however, i am curious. since the mind/body issue was raised as a result of a lifetime of observation of asian culture, does anyone have some thoughts on cross cultural differences here? i know most of the asian grad studs in my dept looked askance at our way of treating health, both physical and mental. a friend of mine used to come in to talk to my first yr soc students to tell him about how he viewed our culture: he would talk about how we displayed love (public displays of affection unacceptable), food (wheat bread and raw veggies were barbarian (his words) and the culture of therapy and drug pushing for everything that ails us. some of the other folks i've talked to di seem to argue for mind-body practices that are vastly different from our own. but that is a generalization based on limited experience. so i'm left wondering if the basic issue--how to treat depression/Depression--that was raised earlier has been addressed elsewhere by looking at these cultural differences?
kelley