[lbo-talk] Philip Mirowski - Social Physicist

Vincent Clarke pclarkepvincent at gmail.com
Fri Mar 5 11:14:10 PST 2010



>
> Acquaintances of mine who suffer auditory hallucinations are all weell
> aware that they are hallucinations. One woman was also extremely hard of
> hearing and she and I discussed the complexities this introduced into
> her experience. She suffered from schizoid affective disorder rather
> than schizophrenia. Another instance of the DSm (earlier edition)
> preventing rather than leading to the use of drugs.
>
>
Before you give me particular examples and stories to "prove" me wrong please consider this, from Tsao's article (in which, I may add, she doesn't deal significantly with diagnostic criteria) - I've added a bit of commentary:

"[G]lobal markets for psychotherapeutic drugs have rapidly ballooned: international sales of antidepressants rose by 5% in 2002 [Me: Wow! That's one year], while sales of antipsychotics grew at a breathtaking rate of 19% [Me: I argue that this has a great deal to do with the blurring between neurosis and psychosis - seems pretty obvious when you think about it]. Over the past decade, moreover, worldwide antidepressant sales have risen dramatically among low-income groups [Me:...who are more likely to avail of less costly psychological treatment - most of these are diagnosed by untrained doctors or social workers], who have been relentlessly urged by a multimillion dollar public relations industry [Me: Whose terminology originates in the DSM] to conceptualise mental health as a purchasable commodity [Me: And presumably based, to a large degree, on self-image] and, thus, a problem of consumer choice".



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