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Summary Of Robert Whitaker's Mad In America

630 Words3 Pages

Robert Whitaker asks the question why do people with mental illness in the United States fare less well than people in poorer countries? His research argues that antipsychotic drugs worsen the very symptoms they are supposed to treat. In 2001 he ended his book Mad in America with a fatalistic summary. “There would be no rethinking of the care of people with schizophrenia (or other psychotic diagnoses) in the United States. The drug companies and academic psychiatry had entered into a storytelling partnership, and together they would promote the belief that antipsychotics are an essential treatment for psychotic disorders and should remain the cornerstone of care.” (303) However today he espouses a more hopeful outlook, saying “society no longer trusts what psychiatry says about mental disorders and its drugs”. (304) However, I don’t fully agree with that statement. I do believe that as a society we are becoming better versed in mental health, medications, the marriage between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry, but I don’t believe we completely distrust the field of psychiatry. …show more content…

In Voices from the Inside, caregiving is centered on the American context, which is in sharp contrast to other cultures. “… students from different cultures sometimes comment that the ambivalence felt by many Americans about caregiving would not even arise in the consciousness of people in their respective countries. In societies where the most fundamental social unit is the group rather than the individual, people automatically and unquestionably subordinate their personal goals to family needs”.

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