Mental Illness?

[ElfDude]

I'd like to hear some opinion on this, especially from Endlessly Rocking, since he is a professional in the field.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cct ... 576.htm?1c

A study was done in various countrlies on mental illness.

"Eight countries were defined as rich: the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and Japan; six were deemed poor or nearly poor: Mexico, Colombia, Ukraine, China, Lebanon and Nigeria. Within each country, whether rich or poor, the study took into account the economic status of respondents."

Here is the segment of the results which really makes me wonder...

"26 percent of Americans were judged to have mental illness, compared with only 4 percent of the residents of Shanghai and 5 percent of Nigerians. About 18 percent of Americans had anxiety disorders, versus 12 percent of the French, 11 percent of Lebanese and 10 percent of Colombians. Europeans other than the French were in the 7 percent range, while Nigerians and Chinese were the calmest, at about 3 percent."

26% of Americans have a mental illness compared to only 5% of Nigerians?

The conclusion that I would draw is that Americans have it so easy, so good, with so much leisure time, that they've lost perspective. In another thread ER mentioned victimhood. It looks to me (and I know that I'm no expert here) like at least 20% of Americans just think it's cool or fashionable to feel sorry for themselves and to tell everyone around them how bad they've got it.

What do you folks think?

[*Lifesonite]

18% have anxiety disorders? That sounds about right.

[Xanadu]

Ummm...thats stupid because how could they say that when the vast majority of the psychos in poverty don't even ged to be diagnosed Fuck staistics.

[ElfDude]

Ummm...thats stupid because how could they say that when the vast majority of the psychos in poverty don't even ged to be diagnosed

People across all income ranges were interviewed. And the part that is making people do a double take is that those in conditions of real poverty aren't as bad off mentally as those who are prosperous.

[Xanadu]

People across all income ranges were interviewed.

Aye but what is the likelyhood of them gedding diagnosed compared to wealthy people??? What I am attempting to explain here is that most of the people with mental illnesses in poverty stricken countries have WAY less chance of gedding diagnosed...so how many undiagnosed mental illness is there? May be a larger percentage than there is here.

[ElfDude]

I think there's still a misunderstanding. This study wasn't conducted by looking at medical records in the various countries and just gathering the statistics that way. The World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School actually went into the countries and evaluated samples of the peoples there by interviewing them.

[awip2062]

I must say that the results of this study do not surprise me.

The pace we run our lives at is one that leads naturally to anxiety disorders and other mental illnessess. We don't allow ourselves time to slow down and think. To sit and listen to the birds. To truly look at the beauty around us. To listen to our families and friends. Heck! We often don't even spend any real quality time with our families anymore.

The ties that bind have been broken.

The images given to us in the media are twisted and distorted and racing and disjointed and mainly negative.

We entertain ourselves with violence and depravity.

We live in a culture where we refuse to take responsibility for our own actions.

We are much happier just taking a drug to kill the pain than doing something about our situation.

We buy into the victim mentality and stay in our pity-pots rather than gedding up off our wide-olds and doing something to change it.

We like having people feel sorry for us and agree with us about how bad our situations are.

We are selfish, lazy, irresponsible people.

So why wouldn't we end up being anxious, mentally ill people?

[ElfDude]

I can't disagree with you, awip. When did this start? It certainly wasn't like this in my dad's generation. They worked their tails off, loved their families and their country, and didn't just whine and mope about.

*looks at his wide-old* D'oh!!!

[awip2062]

It was there in your father's generation. Maybe not in your father, but it was there. Think about the family histories and you know it was there, but not as prominant. It is a working out of the changing worldviews in this nation.

[ElfDude]

It was there in your father's generation. Maybe not in your father, but it was there. Think about the family histories and you know it was there, but not as prominant. It is a working out of the changing worldviews in this nation.

I tend to view my father's generation (WW2) as the greatest generation this country has seen since the revolutionary war. But now that I think about it, you're right. FDR created the country's first welfare state during that generation...

[Me]

There is only mental illness percieved in degrees of other minds.

ER is really a DJ upset at having to play, "Pop Goes The Weasel", all the time.....
Wanting to hear, "Closer To The Heart"!

[funky cm]

Couldn't access the link, but here's my 2 cents.

I would look at their diagnostic tools. You can't "conclude" a person has a mental illness by interviewing them. Previous contact with medical professionals may alter results as well. Someone from Nigeria may have only seen a GP once or twice in their lifetimes, and only discussed the basic necessities of life such as vision, breathing, broken limbs etc.. People who have greater access to medical care or medical "information" may have at some point of time had their mental state questioned, either by themselves or by a professional. If I see a Prozac ad, and agree with one of the symptoms they list, this may predispose me into believing I have depression.

[ElfDude]

Couldn't access the link, but here's my 2 cents.

You can't "conclude" a person has a mental illness by interviewing them.

Of course not. I think the whole thing is ridiculous. The only conclusions it appears to draw to me is that Americans feel sorry for themselves and want others to know it more than those surveyed in the other countries. It's pathetic.

[KaelMwithascrubbrush]

Hmmm...for sociologist and social psychologists, these conclusions make very good sense. Traditional psychology focuses on the individual, minimizing context. More recent psychological perspectives have begun to acknowledge that the "individual" makes no sense without context, since it is context itself that allows individuals some sense of differentiation...interesting development. Anyways, the conclusions of the particular study under consideration are interesting because they coroborate points made by sociologists and social psychologists almost fifty years ago, in the case of C. Wright Mills, the seeds of whose work lie very much in the work of Max Weber, who wrote almost one hundred years ago. Other researchers who've worked in this direction include Erving Goffman, Thomas Sahz (I think I spelled that last name right), and the author of Changes in the Social Contract (can't recall his name off the top of my head). Also, William Wolman and Anne Colamosca's rather disturbing book The Judas Economy dances around some of these conclusions.

[Devil's Advocate]

Couldn't access the link, but here's my 2 cents.

You can't "conclude" a person has a mental illness by interviewing them.

Of course not. I think the whole thing is ridiculous. The only conclusions it appears to draw to me is that Americans feel sorry for themselves and want others to know it more than those surveyed in the other countries. It's pathetic.

Could it not be that increased reates of mental illness are a direct consequence of our decadent Western lifestyle, in much that same way as increasing rates of allergies are a result of modern medicine's near-elimination of once-endemic diseases, parasites and infections? (Factoid of the day: worms cure IBS.)