The Medicalisation of Everyday Life

The Medicalisation of Everyday Life PDF Author: Barbara Fawcett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350311197
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This is timely new book examines the generally accepted understanding of the theory and practice of mental health. Drawing on historical and contemporary practices, it critically explores the concept of mental illness and how it is treated, the integration of health and social care, and providing a person-centred approach. As well as tackling more general aspects, such as how we categorise mental health and the contemporary practice around medication and treatment alternatives, it also focusses on specific areas currently labelled 'mental illness', including depression, anxiety, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Final chapters address the evidence for the effectiveness of psychopharmacology and the place of placebos in research and treatment, the importance of cultural sensitivity in a globalised world and the possibilities for the future practice in mental health services. The importance of non-medical alternative therapies and the incorporation of consumer perspectives in mental health service practice are highlighted throughout as a means of strengthening the experience of mental health service delivery for mental health professionals and consumers. Whether a student on a mental health nursing course, a social work student focussing on mental health, or a practitioner in the medical and allied health professions, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants a greater understanding of the theory and practice of mental health.

The Medicalisation of Everyday Life

The Medicalisation of Everyday Life PDF Author: Barbara Fawcett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350311197
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is timely new book examines the generally accepted understanding of the theory and practice of mental health. Drawing on historical and contemporary practices, it critically explores the concept of mental illness and how it is treated, the integration of health and social care, and providing a person-centred approach. As well as tackling more general aspects, such as how we categorise mental health and the contemporary practice around medication and treatment alternatives, it also focusses on specific areas currently labelled 'mental illness', including depression, anxiety, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Final chapters address the evidence for the effectiveness of psychopharmacology and the place of placebos in research and treatment, the importance of cultural sensitivity in a globalised world and the possibilities for the future practice in mental health services. The importance of non-medical alternative therapies and the incorporation of consumer perspectives in mental health service practice are highlighted throughout as a means of strengthening the experience of mental health service delivery for mental health professionals and consumers. Whether a student on a mental health nursing course, a social work student focussing on mental health, or a practitioner in the medical and allied health professions, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants a greater understanding of the theory and practice of mental health.

The Medicalization of Everyday Life

The Medicalization of Everyday Life PDF Author: Thomas Szasz
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815608677
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
This collection of impassioned essays, published between 1973 and 2006, chronicles Thomas Szasz’s long campaign against the orthodoxies of “pharmacracy,” that is, the alliance of medicine and the state. From “Diagnoses Are Not Diseases” to “The Existential Identity Thief,” “Fatal Temptation,” and “Killing as Therapy,” the book delves into the complex evolution of medicalization, concluding with “Pharmacracy: The New Despotism.” In practice, society must draw a line between what counts as medical practice and what does not. Where it draws that line goes far in defining the kinds of laws its citizens live under, the kinds of medical care they receive, and the kinds of lives they are allowed to live.

The New Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology

The New Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology PDF Author: William C. Cockerham
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119250676
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 626

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Book Description
An authoritative, topical, and comprehensive reference to the key concepts and most important traditional and contemporary issues in medical sociology. Contains 35 chapters by recognized experts in the field, both established and rising young scholars Covers standard topics in the field as well as new and engaging issues such as bioterrorism, bioethics, and infectious disease Chapters are thematically arranged to cover the major issues of the sub-discipline Global range of contributors and an international perspective

Saving Normal

Saving Normal PDF Author: Allen Frances, M.D.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062229273
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
From "the most powerful psychiatrist in America" (New York Times) and "the man who wrote the book on mental illness" (Wired), a deeply fascinating and urgently important critique of the widespread medicalization of normality Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. These challenges are a normal part of being human, and they should not be treated as psychiatric disease. However, today millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and are receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, warns that mislabeling everyday problems as mental illness has shocking implications for individuals and society: stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, misallocation of medical resources, and draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient and self-healing brains, which have kept us sane for hundreds of thousands of years, and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the new edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), will turn our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Alarmingly, in DSM-5, normal grief will become "Major Depressive Disorder"; the forgetting seen in old age is "Mild Neurocognitive Disorder"; temper tantrums are "Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder"; worrying about a medical illness is "Somatic Symptom Disorder"; gluttony is "Binge Eating Disorder"; and most of us will qualify for adult "Attention Deficit Disorder." What's more, all of these newly invented conditions will worsen the cruel paradox of the mental health industry: those who desperately need psychiatric help are left shamefully neglected, while the "worried well" are given the bulk of the treatment, often at their own detriment. Masterfully charting the history of psychiatric fads throughout history, Frances argues that whenever we arbitrarily label another aspect of the human condition a "disease," we further chip away at our human adaptability and diversity, dulling the full palette of what is normal and losing something fundamental of ourselves in the process. Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity.

The Medicalization of Society

The Medicalization of Society PDF Author: Peter Conrad
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801892341
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Over the past half-century, the social terrain of health and illness has been transformed. What were once considered normal human events and common human problems—birth, aging, menopause, alcoholism, and obesity—are now viewed as medical conditions. For better or worse, medicine increasingly permeates aspects of daily life. Building on more than three decades of research, Peter Conrad explores the changing forces behind this trend with case studies of short stature, social anxiety, "male menopause," erectile dysfunction, adult ADHD, and sexual orientation. He examines the emergence of and changes in medicalization, the consequences of the expanding medical domain, and the implications for health and society. He finds in recent developments—such as the growing number of possible diagnoses and biomedical enhancements—the future direction of medicalization. Conrad contends that the impact of medical professionals on medicalization has diminished. Instead, the pharmaceutical and biotechnical industries, insurance companies and HMOs, and the patient as consumer have become the major forces promoting medicalization. This thought-provoking study offers valuable insight into not only how medicalization got to this point but also how it may continue to evolve.

Sick-Note Britain

Sick-Note Britain PDF Author: Adrian Massey
Publisher: Hurst & Company
ISBN: 1787381226
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
An urgent call to reform Britain's sickness culture, offering social--not medical--solutions.

The Medicalization of Marijuana

The Medicalization of Marijuana PDF Author: Michelle Newhart
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429833776
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Winner of the Donald W. Light Award for the Applied or Public Practice of Medical Sociology Medical marijuana laws have spread across the U.S. to all but a handful of states. Yet, eighty years of social stigma and federal prohibition creates dilemmas for patients who participate in state programs. The Medicalization of Marijuana takes the first comprehensive look at how patients negotiate incomplete medicalization and what their experiences reveal about our relationship with this controversial plant as it is incorporated into biomedicine. Is cannabis used similarly to other medicines? Drawing on interviews with midlife patients in Colorado, a state at the forefront of medical cannabis implementation, this book explores the practical decisions individuals confront about medical use, including whether cannabis will work for them; the risks of registering in a state program; and how to handle questions of supply, dosage, and routines of use. Individual stories capture how patients redefine and reclaim cannabis use as legitimate—individually and collectively—and grapple with an inherently political identity. These experiences help illustrate how stigma, prejudice, and social change operate. By positioning cannabis use within sociological models of medical behavior, Newhart and Dolphin provide a wide-reaching, theoretically informed analysis of the issue that expands established concepts and provides new insight on medical cannabis and how state programs work.

Global Perspectives on ADHD

Global Perspectives on ADHD PDF Author: Meredith R. Bergey
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421423804
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Examining ADHD and its social and medical treatments around the world. Attention deficithyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been a common psychiatric diagnosis in both children and adults since the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. But the diagnosis was much less common—even unknown—in other parts of the world. By the end of the twentieth century, this was no longer the case, and ADHD diagnosis and treatment became an increasingly widespread global phenomenon. As the diagnosis was adopted around the world, the definition and treatment of ADHD often changed in the context of different psychiatric professions, medical systems, and cultures. Global Perspectives on ADHD is the first book to examine how this expanding public health concern is diagnosed and treated in 16 different countries. In some countries, readers learn, over 10% of school-aged children and adolescents are diagnosed with ADHD; in others, that figure is less than 1%. Some countries focus on medicating children with ADHD; others emphasize parent intervention or child therapy. Showing how a medical diagnosis varies across contexts and time periods, this book explains how those distinctions shape medical interventions and guidelines, filling a much-needed gap by examining ADHD on an international scale. Contributors: Madeleine Akrich, Mari J. Armstrong-Hough, Meredith R. Bergey, Eugenia Bianchi, Christian Bröer, Peter Conrad, Claire Edwards, Silvia A. Faraone, Angela M. Filipe, Alessandra Frigerio, Valéria Portugal Gonçalves, Linda J. Graham, Hiroyuki Ito, Fabian Karsch, Victor Kraak, Claudia Malacrida, Lorenzo Montali, Yasuo Murayama, Sebastián Rojas Navarro, Órla O'Donovan, Francisco Ortega, Mónica Peña Ochoa, Brenton J. Prosser, Vololona Rabeharisoa, Patricio Rojas, Tiffani Semach, Ilina Singh, Rachel Spronk, Junko Teruyama, Masatsugu Tsujii, Fan-Tzu Tseng, Manuel Vallée, Rafaela Zorzanelli

The Myth of Mental Illness

The Myth of Mental Illness PDF Author: Thomas S. Szasz
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062104748
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
“The landmark book that argued that psychiatry consistently expands its definition of mental illness to impose its authority over moral and cultural conflict.” — New York Times The 50th anniversary edition of the most influential critique of psychiatry every written, with a new preface on the age of Prozac and Ritalin and the rise of designer drugs, plus two bonus essays. Thomas Szasz's classic book revolutionized thinking about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. By diagnosing unwanted behavior as mental illness, psychiatrists, Szasz argues, absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions and instead blame their alleged illness. He also critiques Freudian psychology as a pseudoscience and warns against the dangerous overreach of psychiatry into all aspects of modern life.

A Colonial Lexicon

A Colonial Lexicon PDF Author: Nancy Rose Hunt
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822323662
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
A Colonial Lexicon is the first historical investigation of how childbirth became medicalized in Africa. Rejecting the “colonial encounter” paradigm pervasive in current studies, Nancy Rose Hunt elegantly weaves together stories about autopsies and bicycles, obstetric surgery and male initiation, to reveal how concerns about strange new objects and procedures fashioned the hybrid social world of colonialism and its aftermath in Mobutu’s Zaire. Relying on archival research in England and Belgium, as well as fieldwork in the Congo, Hunt reconstructs an ethnographic history of a remote British Baptist mission struggling to survive under the successive regimes of King Leopold II’s Congo Free State, the hyper-hygienic, pronatalist Belgian Congo, and Mobutu’s Zaire. After exploring the roots of social reproduction in rituals of manhood, she shows how the arrival of the fast and modern ushered in novel productions of gender, seen equally in the forced labor of road construction and the medicalization of childbirth. Hunt focuses on a specifically interwar modernity, where the speed of airplanes and bicycles correlated with a new, mobile medicine aimed at curbing epidemics and enumerating colonial subjects. Fascinating stories about imperial masculinities, Christmas rituals, evangelical humor, colonial terror, and European cannibalism demonstrate that everyday life in the mission, on plantations, and under a strongly Catholic colonial state was never quite what it seemed. In a world where everyone was living in translation, privileged access to new objects and technologies allowed a class of “colonial middle figures”—particularly teachers, nurses, and midwives—to mediate the evolving hybridity of Congolese society. Successfully blurring conventional distinctions between precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial situations, Hunt moves on to discuss the unexpected presence of colonial fragments in the vibrant world of today’s postcolonial Africa. With its close attention to semiotics as well as sociology, A Colonial Lexiconwill interest specialists in anthropology, African history, obstetrics and gynecology, medical history, religion, and women’s and cultural studies.