Doug Henwood
Rotating Bitch wrote:
>I don't have an investment in how this is handled one way or another,
>but at least get the freakin' article straight, mmmmkay?
>
>(this isn't directed at Doug).
I think people (hi Carrol!) were too busy responding to my headnote to read the article!
Doug ___________________________________
Well, what should show up in my mail today, but the weekly issue of New Scientist. This contains a interview with Nancy Andreasen, shrink, professor of shrinkage at the University of Iowa, editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry, contributor to the DSM-III, and author of "The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius." She gives the "vulgar materialism" of psychiatry the old one-two:
NS: "What do you think is wrong with psychiatry today?"
NA: "There is less emphasis on careful observation. . . . We tend to overbiologize, we oversimplify the mechanisms of mental illness: in a reductionist framework, depression is a serotonin disease, schizophrenia a dopamine disease. But if we look only at brains, we fail to recognize the important role that personal life experiences may play in losing our minds. . .
NS: "Does that explain why patients are prescribed so many drugs?"
NA: "Doctors and patients began to think that most problems could be solved by popping a pill. In the U.S., at least, we have had some serious over-prescribing for conditions such as attention deficit disorders, anxiety and depression. Sometimes people see medicines as cosmetic surgery for the mind."
"Cosmetic surgery for the mind"? That would be the very definition of vulgar materialism, wouldn't it? Case closed.