Summary Of Ethan Watters 'The Globalization Of The Western Mind'

Introduction

CRAZY LIKE US – The Globalization of the Western Mind is a book written by Ethan Watters. The book introduces four examples of Americans flattening the landscape of the human psyche – Americanizing the world’s understanding of the human mind. Watters’ explains that modes of healing and culturally specific beliefs about how to achieve mental health can be lost to humanity (Watters, 2011). He compares this loss to an animal or plant lapsing into extinction. And like those animals and plants, the diversity in the human understanding of the mind can disappear before we’ve truly grasped its value (Watters, 2011). Watters introduces four case studies that further develop his argument called The Rise of Anorexia in Hong Kong, The Wave

The four case studies demonstrate how although this has often been done with the best intentions, they’ve failed to foresee the full impact of these efforts. Watters explains that how people in a culture think about mental illnesses – how they arrange and classify the symptoms, attempt to heal, and set expectations for their course of outcome influence the disease itself (Watters, 2011). In order to prevent the extinction of the diversity in the human understanding of the mind we need indigenous psychology.

The Rise of Anorexia in Hong Kong

According to international psychologists’ risks to physical and mental health is one of the major concerns of global significance (Stevens, 2004). In The Rise of Anorexia in Hong Kong, Watters explains that before anorexia was well known in Hong Kong, Chinese anorexia was unlike that found in the West (Watters, 2011). Most, did not display a ‘fear of fatness’ common among Western anorexics, nor did they misperceive the fragile state of their body by believing they were overweight. Over a short period of time the appearance of anorexia in Hong Kong changed (Watters, 2011). The symptom cluster that was distinctive to Hong Kong began to disappear. What was once a unique disorder was replaced by the American version of the disease that

It is important to mention that Western psychology has come a far way in their research and development, however; CRAZY LIKE US stresses the importance of ‘Sinicization’ (as the Taiwanese called it) or indigenization. Indigenous psychology rejects the unilateral imposition of Western psychology and argues for the adoption of the enlightened approach in which psychological knowledge is generated based on dialogue, understand, and scientific rigor (Steven, 2007). However, before we can suggest indigenous psychology we need to discuss why the globalized application of Western psychology is ineffective. To explain this we need to acknowledge the psychological differences between the developed and the developing countries that the Western Psychologists in CRAZY LIKE US have ignored. Western societies are commonly individualistic and have a high power distance (Stevens, 2007). Cultures with an individualistic society promote self-actualization and a high power distance indicates an emphasis on a therapist’s authority and expertise (Stevens, 2007). However, more often than not, societies in developing countries are collective and display low power distance (Stevens, 2007). This means that the majority of developing societies promote social harmony, sensitivity and non-directness (Stevens, 2007). Micheal J. Stevens in Toward a Global