Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis

Product Information

Using studies, interviews with experts and detailed analysis, the book explores how mental health outcomes have flatlined since the 1980s as our mental health sector has primarily developed over that period to serve economic outcomes, but at the expense of providing the health services people both need and want. Arguing that rather than a societal/cultural/work approach to mental health we look at those with mental health issues individually. What are the most common challenges for clients with co-occurring issues in making positive life changes? James is also a psychotherapist, who started working for the NHS in 2004. He is the co-founder of the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry (CEP), which is secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence. La tesis principal de Davies es que el neoliberalismo impulsado por Tatcher en la década de los 80 caló cambiando la cultura y la mentalidad de la población, inculcando ciertos valores que le son funcionales al sistema capitalista, tales como el materialismo o el individualismo, despolitizando y patologizando los problemas de salud mental. Así, el autor apuesta por un origen sociogénico a la actual ola de salud mental, y reivindica la necesidad de poner el foco en las causas estructurales (el sistema) y no sólo coyunturales (la pandemia, la guerra).

Politics of Distress: A Discussion With Dr. James Davies The Politics of Distress: A Discussion With Dr. James Davies

The book that then looks at a type of treatment called APT which will help people in times of stress but when you look at the statistical outcomes they show the same amount of recovery as people who haven't had any treatment even though they seem to fiddle the numbers to say that they are been a success. The greatest number of people who are struggling are actually people who are practitioners of APT therapy. They are constantly in burnout mode. Di luar masalah pekerjaan, ada juga gaya hidup yg sengaja dibentuk oleh kapitalisme agar kalau kita stress larinya belanja aja. Alias, melakukan "retail therapy." Kita sendiri pasti ngerasain gempuran iklan di mana-mana. Mendorong kita buat jajan secara impulsif. The author looks also at how in modern day Britain, where schools are are ranked by league tables and even parents are putting high levels of pressure on their own children to succeed and pass exams, is it any wonder that children are feeling high levels of anxiety and sadness. In countries such as Canada, where things are much more relaxed, there are far fewer children with so-called mental health problems. It doesn't help that many of these needs are created not just by governments alone, but also by many parents.

Sedated

Sometimes mental health services focus too much on what is wrong with someone as opposed to what happened to someone. So for example if you have an increased workload and you're not sleeping and therefore this is bringing you down and you feel a lot of stress and pressure it is often the remit of professionals to say that that person is suffering from depression rather than from an increased workload that could be managed and sorted rather than trying to manage the label of depression. Many well-being courses that are supplied by companies such as the NHS have no evidence to show that they work in regards to reducing stress and depression. If you have an increased workload for example, you find your job boring and you might have some personal problems it is totally natural to feel some signs of depression or sadness in your life but perhaps managing what it is it's bothering you might be more important than just going on the well-being course where are you practising mindfulness techniques. As already pointed out, no research shows that these kinds of courses actually support and help people and make any changes to their well-being and mental health status. Using a wealth of studies, interviews with experts, and detailed analysis, Dr James Davies argues that this is because we have fundamentally mischaracterised the problem. Rather than viewing most mental distress as an understandable reaction to wider societal problems, we have embraced a medical model which situates the problem solely within the sufferer and their brain. The preferred emotional state for late capitalism is a state of perpetual “functional dissatisfaction”; functional to the extent that you will continue to work, and dissatisfied to the extent that you will continue to spend.” Many believed that we were being granted the freedom to grow personal wealth, giving us all the same opportunities. We adhered to the idea that this neoliberal freedom was vastly preferable to the very limited freedom of Soviet Russia. And every government since the 1980s has continued with this system, even if some did tweak it around the edges.

How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis - LinkedIn How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis - LinkedIn

James Davies is one of the most important voices on mental health in the world. This is a beautiful and deeply sane book. Everyone who’s suffering – and wants to know how to make it stop – should read it right away. ― Johann Hari, author of Lost Connections As a student, you will have be supported not just by those that teach you, but also by the wide range of staff who will be with you throughout your studies. Within the book, Dr Davies argues the widespread medicalisation of mental distress has fundamentally mischaracterised the problem. Many who are diagnosed and prescribed psychiatric medication are not suffering from biologically identifiable problems. Instead, they are experiencing the understandable and, of course, painful human consequences of life’s difficulties – family breakdowns, problems at work, unhappiness in relationships, low self-esteem. Mental health concerns have risen since 2004 by 48% with an estimated one in eight children suffering from some form of mental health condition or difficulty. The idea that we have infinite power over our lives and fates, while initially seductive and uplifting for some, often leads to acute disappointment when things go wrong. Persuading people they have more power than they do and ignoring the real barriers to attainment primes them for self-blame when reality fails to deliver.

El autor detalla este cambio en el imaginario haciendo hincapié en cuatro aspectos: la individualización del problema, el sufrimiento dejó de ser un evento social para convertirse en una lucha individual; la redefinición de lo que es el bienestar y la felicidad; la patologización de las emociones que son negativas en términos económicos (como la falta de concentración); y la mercantilización de las respuestas al problema del sufrimiento en términos de oferta de consumo". Dr James Davies, from the Departments of Psychology and Life Sciences in the University of Roehampton, London has published a book investigating the vast increase in mental health interventions since the 1980s, despite there being no clear improvement in clinical outcomes over the last four decades.