Exporting American mental illness
The New York Times Magazine has a great discussion of the effects of the exportation of American ideas about mental illness, titled appropriately, The Americanization of Mental Illness by Ethan Watters, based on his forthcoming book, Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, coming out this month from Free Press. The article is quite good, offering some intriguing cases, such as the rise of virulent, American-style anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong, the effect of possession beliefs on communities? reactions to schizophrenia, and how the narrative of mental illness as ?brain disease? might actually lead to great stigma as it spreads and replaces local understandings. The article is well worth a read, and I?m looking forward to the book.