ipl-logo

Summary Of Crazy Like Us The Globalization Of The American Psyche

1546 Words7 Pages

Introduction The homogenization of mental health in all aspects is a focus of Ethan Watters in his book Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche. Watters explores and explains his opinions on how America is globalizing mental health in a negative way. He sets the book up as a compilation of case studies that support his idea of mental health homogenization. The four case studies all occur in places outside of America, naturally, but all of the people involved are affected by America in some way. This idea of the globalization of American ideas is not only a real thing, it can be negative in various ways. Furthermore, many Americans that are responsible for the promotion and proliferation of these ideas have no clue how they …show more content…

The four case studies discussed in this book talk about how this phenomenon has negatively affected the people and places it has reached. The first case study deals with anorexia nervosa patients in Hong Kong and how America’s view on anorexia affected the people in Hong Kong. The second case studies talks about the Sri Lanka tsunami and the efforts of people to aid the victims of this tragedy. The third case study is centered on a schizophrenia patient in Zansibar. The fourth and final case study discusses a pharmaceutical company’s exploitation of Japanese depression patients (or lack thereof) to make a massive amount of money. These four studies are only a few of the many examples of how America is negatively passing on ideas on how to treat people and …show more content…

The first case study, as previously mentioned, discusses anorexia nervosa patients in Hong Kong under Dr. Sing Lee. Dr. Lee was a psychiatrist working at Hong Kong University in China. He specifically dealt with people that had eating disorders and more specifically, people with anorexia. He believed that his patients had a unique type of anorexia compared to how Americans viewed anorexia. His patients mainly complained about physical ailments that were causing them not to eat, such as bloating of the stomach. In America, most anorexia patients starve themselves due to obsession of being skinny, fear of being fat, or because “everyone else does it.” Dr. Lee was highly focused on finding out why this was and was trying to figure out why it was unique to his area. On November 24, 1994 one of Dr. Lee’s patients, Charlene Hsu Chi-Yang, died in public due to complications from anorexia. This event sparked what would be a disaster to Dr. Lee’s progress in dealing with anorexia. Journalists and reporters paralleled this event to events that happened in America, which is exactly the opposite of what Dr. Lee needed to continue progress in his care and research. America views anorexia differently, mostly negatively, which made an imprint on how people in China view anorexia. This caused a great deal of unrest in the world of mental health in the East. They deal with anorexia

Show More
Related
1341 Words | 6 Pages

Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche begins by discussing the westernization of illness in other countries. The book, which was written by Ethan Watters, gives four examples of the Americanization of illness, discussing anorexia in Hong Kong, PTSD in Sri Lanka, schizophrenia in Zanzibar, and depression in Japan. The first chapter, “The Rise of Anorexia in Hong Kong”, begins with Dr. Lee. Dr. Lee has spent years studying anorexia, and has found the course of the disease has changed throughout history, especially after the introduction of the DSM. In early research, Dr. Lee found that many clients who reported an anorexia- type disease showed physical symptoms, such as stomachaches and feelings of a blocked esophagus.

Read More
1729 Words | 7 Pages

This book is written from a very personal standpoint, stemming from her real-life experiences on a topic that changed her life forever. Considering her emotional ties to the subject, she is very resourceful in detailing how she felt during each step of recovery. A corresponding source that demonstrates credibility in a different way is the PBS documentary "Dying to be Thin" directed by Larkin McPhee. This documentary not only presents interviews from people that have overcome eating disorders, but various expert opinions from doctors to further support that it is a matter of grave concern. Because it is supported with a mountain of facts and statistics on top of the collection of personal stories, this documentary is slightly more successful in encapsulating eating disorders and establishing credibility.

Read More
498 Words | 2 Pages

Atul Gawande uses his experiences as a surgical resident to write his article “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Eating” in the July 9th, 2001 issue of the New Yorker. In this article, he discusses the power of appetite, using a balance between emotional experiences—specifically those of Vincent Caselli—and medical studies, to ultimately educate the public about the costs and benefits of gastric bypass surgery. Before delving into the complexities of the gastric bypass operation, Gawande introduces the story of Vincent Caselli, a man who underwent the procedure after a lifetime of struggling with obesity and his appetite. Gawande informs the readers of Caselli’s development into adulthood specifically showing the effect obesity had on Caselli’s socialization.

Read More
675 Words | 3 Pages

One person who has experienced the eating disorder, Anorexia, is Jenny Osland. Jenny was only in high school when she developed anorexia. She was in many sports which caused her to start focusing on how much she was eating and how many calories were in her meals. She would start to break down every

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

Anorexics that are in more pain with their experiences may decide to commit suicide in a much more painful suicide. There were strengths in the study and they included using utilization of diagnostic evaluations, long follow-up periods, and high retention rates. The study couldn’t be completely accurate due to the fact that some passed away, naturally and some by suicide. Lastly, this article discusses that eating disorder individuals that seek help experience more severe problems and confines in suicide more than the ones who don’t seek medical

Read More
1391 Words | 6 Pages

In “The Globalization of Eating Disorders”, written by Susan Bordo in 2003, the author declares that eating and body disorders have increased rapidly throughout the entire globe. Susan Bordo, attended Carleton University as well as the State University of New York, is a modern feminist philosopher who is very well known for her contributions to the field of cultural studies, especially in ‘body studies’ which grants her the credibility to discuss this rising global issue (www.wikipedia.org, 2015). She was correspondingly a professor of English and Women Studies at the University of Kentucky which gives her the authority to write this article. “The Globalization of Eating Disorders” is written as a preface to her Pulitzer Price-nominated book “Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body” which was similarly written in 2003. Through the use of many logical arguments and evidence, Bordo successfully manages to convince her audience that the media, body images and culture have severely influenced the ‘so-called’ trending standard of beauty and how it leads to eating disorders across the world.

Read More
526 Words | 3 Pages

Anorexia applied to every little aspect in her life, which is where it differs from anorexics who are only worried about food. She found herself counting every calorie that came near her body and digging through encyclopedias for every element in her food. Her new coming skinniness didn’t come from her sister’s nickname of “Sister Infinity Fats” that even her parents joined in on, it merely formed on something Jenny considered a hobby. But her “hobby” became more than that after a while, thinking she would be “condemned to hell” for taking up so much room and felt guilty for eating. As Jenny neared college she desperately filled her schedule with every activity she could fit into her schedule from French club to drama club.

Read More
823 Words | 4 Pages

In the article “The Globalization of Eating Disorders”, Susan Bordo analyzes misconceptions about stereotypes associated with eating disorders. Bordo explains that eating disorders are no longer associated with one particular race, gender, or nationality. He notes that “we are dealing here with a cultural problem. If eating disorders were biochemical, as some claim, how can we account for their gradual ‘spread’ across race, gender, and nationality?” (Bordo 642).

Read More
939 Words | 4 Pages

Prior to this class I did not know the severity of just how deadly eating disorders were. Growing up you heard about eating disorders and there may have been a few girls in high school that you knew were suffering from an eating disorder but that was the extent of what you knew. The fact that 8 million people are affected by an eating disorder is a staggering number that should alarm parents and peers alone. But although it affects this many people and has the highest mortality rate among psychiatric disorders it is rarely talked about until it hits close to home.

Read More
1746 Words | 7 Pages

Misrepresentation of Mental Illness in Films Movies, being the most preferred form of entertainment, tend to reach huge global audiences and can exert a powerful influence to shape their attitudes and opinions. It is undeniable to assert how they, directly or vicariously, affect the way people behave towards similar situations in reality, highly in consonance with the way they are depicted in films. The constant attempt by the film industry to romanticize or glamorize their films, however; at the cost of a false characterization of mental disorders, is not only unworthy of appreciation but also morally reprehensible. The way psychiatric patients are shown as harboring criminal tendencies towards other people is a blatantly false depiction of how a majority of such patients are, in real life. This is not only true of films but also of social media platforms, where a large number of people sharing “similar” problems, would express their feelings in order to create a supportive, safe space for other people.

Read More
306 Words | 2 Pages

Sanism, is a form of oppression that is largely carried out by todays health care system. It is a term that Poole et al. (2012) defines as such; an oppression that leads to discrimination and stereotypes on individuals who deviate from the “mental health” norms that have been constructed by mainstream culture and society. These people are commonly labeled as mentally ill or “crazy” (p. 20). I believe this to demonstrate that the health care system works on integrating individuals into mainstream society, with the aim of not disrupting the status quo.

Read More
1525 Words | 7 Pages

They often have an intense fear of fat and gaining weight and often have distorted views of their own body image (Shapiro 2). Thus, they resort to severe food restriction, periods of fasting and even various purging methods for weight loss (Grilo 5). On the other hand, Bulimic patients often binge-eat and then looking for methods to get rid of the food due to guilt by various purging methods (i.e., self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives or diuretics and excessive exercise) (Grilo 5). Although many say that the media causes eating disorders, studies have shown that the media is not the main cause of eating disorders. The media does have a part to play in causing the rise in eating disorders in today’s society.

Read More
512 Words | 3 Pages

In order for someone who actively opposes, or is unfamiliar with the term cultural relativism, it is critical that they question the way that they have previously viewed differing cultures. It is important that it is understood that all cultures are very different, encompassing very different beliefs, traditions, and morals. With this being said, I would provide them with some American customs that tend to be negatively viewed by many cultures throughout the world. Many outsiders, who aren’t accustomed to America’s pharmaceutical marketing strategies, find our prescription drug advertising to be very odd and alarming.

Read More
811 Words | 4 Pages

Sicko is an American documentary by Michael Moore which explores the status of health care in America. In my opinion, he has presented a clear-cut viewpoint that American health care is not producing results. Nearly half a hundred million Americans, according to Sicko, are not insured while the rest, who are insured, are often sufferers of insurance company deceit and also red tape. Additionally, Sicko mentions that the United States health care system is placed 37th out of 191 by the W.H.O. with definite health measures, like the neonate death and life probability, equivalent to countries with quite less financial wealth. Interviews are carried out with individuals who supposed they had sufficient coverage but were deprived of care.

Read More
986 Words | 4 Pages

All of the victims described in the documentary are the normal people who are not really living a normal life, because of certain reasons; they may be family reasons or the reasons that are not even valid for having such a miserable life. The eating disorders may start from the dieting that is so common these days, or they may arise due to the negligence by the family of a person. The different cases and the different individuals described in the documentary are the victims of dieting or the negligence of their families. The lives of these individuals have changed after they have been admitted to the Renfrew, as they are now under the supervision of the professional staff at the Renfrew. They are all from different backgrounds and different cultures, but now they all have to live together and they all have to fight with this disease together.

Read More

More about Summary Of Crazy Like Us The Globalization Of The American Psyche

Related Topics

Open Document