Cohen - Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness
Here you can read online Cohen - Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. City: London, year: 2016, publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, genre: Politics. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Romance novel
Science fiction
Adventure
Detective
Science
History
Home and family
Prose
Art
Politics
Computer
Non-fiction
Religion
Business
Children
Humor
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness: summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
3: Psychiatric Hegemony: Mental Illness in Neoliberal Society Hegemony, Ideology, and Professional Power; The Public Language of the DSM-III; The Rise of Neoliberalism and Hegemonic Psychiatry; Bio-Power, Governance, and Psychiatric Hegemony; Summary; Bibliography; 4: Work: Enforcing Compliance; Moral Treatment and the Work Ethic; The Humanisation of Work; Case Study: Social Anxiety Disorder; Summary; Bibliography; 5: Youth: Medicalising Deviance; The Social Construction of Childhood; Intelligence Testing; The Rise of the Risky Kid;Dedication; Preface; Acknowledgements; Contents; List of Abbreviations; List of Figures and Tables; 1: Introduction: Thinking Critically About Mental Illness; Critical Scholarship on Mental Illness; Deconstructing the Science of Psychiatry; The Urgency for Marxist Theory; Summary; Bibliography; 2: Marxist Theory and Mental Illness: A Critique of Political Economy; Historical Materialism; Marxism, Medicine, and Mental Health; Industrialisation and the Mad Doctors; Biological Theory and Physical Treatments; The Drugs Revolution; Summary; Bibliography;Colonial Resistance and Psychiatrys Civilising Principle The Culture of Fear and the War without End; Summary; Bibliography; 8: Conclusion: Challenging the Psychiatric Hegemon; Towards Abolition; Challenging the Apologists; Bibliography; Appendix A: Methodology for Textual Analysis of the DSMs; Appendix B: Youth-Related Diagnostic Categories in the DSM, 1952-2013; Appendix C: Feminised Diagnostic Categories in the DSM, 1952-2013; Index;Education Factories and the Surveillance of the Future Workforce Case Study: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder; Summary; Bibliography; 6: Women: Reproducing Patriarchal Relations; The Division of Labour, Gender Roles, and the Rise of Biological Theory; Deviant Women and Physical Treatments; Neoliberalism and Feminising the DSM; Case Studies: Hysteria and Borderline Personality Disorder; Summary; Bibliography; 7: Resistance: Pathologising Dissent; Biomedicine and Psychiatrys War on Race; The Final Psychiatric Solution
Cohen: author's other books
Who wrote Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Cohen
Petteri Pietikäinen
Ellen Steve
Stuart A. Kirk
Nikolas S Rose
Charney Dennis S.
Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
The Author(s) 2016
Bruce M. Z. Cohen Psychiatric Hegemony 10.1057/978-1-137-46051-6_11. Introduction: Thinking Critically About Mental Illness
Bruce M. Z. Cohen 1
(1)
Department of Sociology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
This book is a critical reflection on the current global epidemic of mental disease, and with that, the global proliferation of mental health professionals and the expanding discourse on mental illness. Over the past 35 years, scientific ideas on mental pathology from the designated experts on the mind have seeped outwards from the psychiatric institution into many spheres of public and private life. It is part of my role as a sociologist to explain how this epidemic has come about and the extent to which it is a valid reflection of real medical progress in the area. I am not alone in undertaking such a project; other social scientistsas well as psychiatrists and psychologists themselveshave investigated the recent expansion in the varieties of mental disorder and their usage among western populations, and have voiced similar concerns to the ones that I will articulate in this book. However, as the title suggests, this work goes further than most other scholars and mental health experts appear able to. This is because I frame the business of mental health within its wider structural context, within a system of power relations of which economic exploitation is the determinant one. Ignoring the development and current dynamics of capitalist society has been a significant omission of most other scholarship in the area; this is my contribution to getting critical social theory back to the heart of research and scholarship in the sociology of mental health.
We are, according to the psychotherapist James Davies (: 5).
Consequently, the WHO (: 2).
In the current milieu it is no surprise that the power and influence of the mental health professionals arelike the above statisticsgrowing at a remarkable rate (Davies : 2). However, as every critical scholar on the topic is aware, very serious problems remain with the current science and practice within the mental health system. These concerns inevitably lead us to questioning the reality of the claims to a mental illness epidemic made by health organisations such as the APA and the WHO, and to ask who really benefits from the global expansion of the psychiatric discourse. An essential issue here is the continuing contested nature of mental illness, for there remains no proof that any mental disorder is a real, observable disease. Consequently, the experts still cannot distinguish the mentally ill from the mentally healthy. In fact, a recent attempt by the APAthe most powerful psychiatric body in the worldto define mental illness was bluntly described by one of their most senior figures as bullshit (see discussion below). Accordingly, it also follows that no treatment has been shown to work on any specific mental illness and that there is no known causation for any disorder. Of course, these issues are highly disputed by many mental health professionals, so the evidence and debates are outlined in detail in the chapters that follow.
I appreciate that questioning the validity of mental illness comes as little comfort to those people who are currently experiencing stress, trauma, or behaviour which causes what Thomas Szasz (), this is not the focus of the current book. Instead, the issue at hand is how to explain the incredible expansion of what we might call the mental health industrythat is, the entirety of the professionals, businesses, and discourse surrounding the area of mental health and illnesswithout a concurrent progression in the scientific evidence on mental pathology. The next section briefly explores some of the main explanations given for the dominance of the current mental health system and the gaps in this work.
Critical Scholarship on Mental Illness
Most commonly, critical scholars focus on one major reason for the current expansion in the numbers and categories of mental illness in western societynamely, the influence of pharmaceutical corporations (colloquially referred to as big pharma) on the construction of new categories of disorder and the promotion of drug solutions for those disorders (see, e.g., Davies ). The more behaviour and experience that can be successfully medicalisedthat is, reconceptualised as in need of medical interventionthrough this medico-industrial partnership, the more drugs can be potentially sold to the public. Thus it is argued that the expansion of the mental illness discourse is the result of a market takeover of health care; corporations rather than medical practitioners are now designating what mental pathology is and, as a result, dictating treatment. The obvious solution to this situation involves the de-coupling of mental health services from the influence of big business. Tighter government regulation and oversight of pharmaceutical corporations is required, as is transparency within the relevant professional organisations.
While this critique of big pharmas intervention in the production and promotion of the contemporary psychiatric discourse is relevant, it is perhaps the least surprising aspect of the operation of the mental health system within capitalist society. Scholars of medical history such as Andrew Scull (), for example, have profiled a continuing trade in lunacy which can be traced back to the beginnings of industrial society and witnessed throughout the development of modern mental health work. That the market is part of the workings of psychiatry and related professions should be self-evident to any scholar aware of the history of the mental health system in western society. Such critics would also acknowledge that while psychiatry legitimates the products of big pharma, pushing psychopharmaceuticals in turn helps legitimate the psychiatric profession. The prescribing of drugs is a key symbol of modern doctoring which serves to align psychiatric practice with other branches of medicine through a shared biomedical understanding of health and illness.
The medico-industrial relationship described above has raised an associated criticism from critical scholars as to the efficacy of the biomedical approach in understanding mental health problems more generally. Biomedicine conceptualises disease as a physical pathology of the body. Thus, biomedical psychiatry theorises mental disorder as having a physical aetiology (causation) that can be observed, measured, and treated. Modern psychiatry focuses on the brain as the organ that causes such disease, and most often regards mental illness as the result of faulty neurotransmitters or chemical imbalances in the brain. The biomedical approach to understanding mental illness have been a part of psychiatry since its emergence over 200 years ago, yet has become increasingly dominant within the mental health system since the 1980s (Chap. ).
Critics call for an understanding of mental disorder which goes beyond biological reductionism to consider psychological, social, and environmental factors which correlate with mental illness. Often conceptualised as the psychosocial model (or simply, the social model) of mental illness, scholars and experts highlight a range of evidence from socio-economic data which demonstrates that such factors as family income, educational level, ethnic group, geographical location, and social class are all closely related to the chances of developing a mental health problem. While the social model suggests that we all have the potential to suffer mental disorders if exposed to traumatic situations, some groups are particularly vulnerable to mental illness due to experiencing comparatively more stressful life conditions and, at the same time, having less access to cultural and economic resources which can alleviate the threat of mental problems. As the WHOs () recent Mental Health Action Plan 20132020 has emphasised,
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
Similar books «Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness»
Look at similar books to Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Petteri Pietikäinen
Ellen Steve
Stuart A. Kirk
Nikolas S Rose
Charney Dennis S.
Reviews about «Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness»
Discussion, reviews of the book Psychiatric hegemony a Marxist theory of mental illness and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.