The rights of the mentally ill is a constant, pressing issue that every country is affected by. It has persevered through both time and distance, and John Steinbeck clearly illustrates this issue in his novella, ‘Of Men and Men,’which was both written and set in the late 1930’s. While the rights of the mentally handicap has been a global concern, the westernization of these afflictions combined with a general lack of understanding has done more than good, but improvements have been made since Steinbeck’s novella.
There are many examples of how not understanding a disorder only hurts everyone involved. In an article by the New York Times, ‘The Americanization of Mental Illness,’ a Dr. Sing Lee’s view on the westernization of mental illness is given. Lee was doing a survey
…show more content…
He found that unlike American anorexia none of his patients, “. . . intentionally diet nor did they express a fear of becoming fat. The complaints of Lee’s patients were typically somatic - they complained most frequently of having bloated stomachs.” During Lee’s study a Chinese teenager dropped dead on the subway, but because of how rare the disease is in China reporters used definitions from American sources, leading to a gross misinterpretation of the disorder throughout China. Misunderstanding something as serious as mental illness does way more harm than good, it prevents people in countries like China from getting the proper help they deserve. The article also discusses schizophrenia. In a series of studies done by the World Health Organization, it was revealed that in countries with significantly less resources show that there is almost two-thirds of a difference in relapse rates compared to the United States and many other first world