On 9th Feb, Doug Henwood wrote:
In a panel on Psychoanalysis & Politics at 2001 (?) Rethinking
Marxism conference, one of the participants said that she didn't
expect socialism would make us all mentally healthy - it would just
give us a better set of problems to work on.
Sorry to be so tardy. & - This is rather rambling, but I see no one has
stinted themselves overly on this thread.
As a lad, the choice was stark in the communes I haunted:
Either you thought psychiatry could help & you were thus
'pro-establishment' - or you were a Laing-ian exploring your inner souls
& repressions formed by Capital.
All well & good - till we hired a minibus & went up to London town to
hear the great man.
Laing came on in a florid floral shirt & proceed to sit in an arm chair
(I think this was the Royal Albert Hall for Gawd's sake) & proceeded to
harangue & abuse the
followers, in a drunk/drugged stupor.
Luckily one cut the Giordian knot in this One or the Other "biology",
with the help of Engels & Lenin. & at about the same time, I saw the
misery of these people & their famous as a psychiatric resident.
So Doug's cautionary remark re that socialism will not necessarily make
happiness, was of interest.
However, in my experience, clinicians massively under-rate the effects
of environment.
one small example: A worker recently examined the Health Related Quality
of LIfe (HRQL) as self-reported by children with Spina bifida. SB is a
very serious disease of the spinal cord. What predicted the children &
adolescents self-perception of HRQL was not the biology ("How high was
the spinal cord cut"?) but their mothers Hopefulness.
We all know what society & life often does to "hope".
Anyway - the book review: In spite of Louis' cautionary note re Prozac
(Actually - was it a cautionary note - it dwelt on getting high?) - I
strongly recommend a book I just acquired called "Let Them eat Prozac";
by David healey; Lorimer; Toronto 2003.
Bless Canadian Association of University Teachers - who have defended
academic freedoms for so many. Healey was the sentinel
canary-in-the-mine however, that alerted many Canadians to these sort of
problems. He got turfed from a Chair-in-waiting for warning of the
dangers of this class of drugs, as Elli Lilley had funded the Chair.
So Michael P - Sorry for the ramble, but I suppose it does have an
economic component.
Hari Kumar
