Reddit mentions of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche

> Are you saying that PTSD symptoms manifest themselves differently based on your country of origin? Does culture really affect us that much? Seems weird.

Culture is, as a set of environmental factors, essentially one of the biggest determinants of how distress is expressed behaviorally and socially. The brain, its chemical language, and its physical structure does not work according to the artificial categories we've created like "anxiety," "depression," or "PTSD." There's distress, and there's the expression of that distress, and cultures have as weird and wild a bunch of ways to express distress as they have weird and wild everything else. Expression of certain symptoms or syndromal patterns of symptoms differs not only between cultures, but within cultures over periods of time.

Additionally, there are some nice accounts of how American-style expressions of distress--mapping onto our particular psychodiagnostic categories--have spread around the world piggybacked on the rest of American culture, sometimes replacing traditional patterns of psychiatric symptomatology.

Source: I teach general and abnormal psychology to undergraduates

Indeed. This is a great starting point: http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1416587098.

I don't know how to get a flair but I have an B.S. in philosophy and am currently in a Ph.D program in clinical psychology.

Good thinking! The DSM (psychiatrists and clinicians diagnostic "Bible" for mental disorders) tries it's best to categorized "mental disorders". The DSM has come under a lot of flack for the way in categorizes mental disorders because the very nature of them is hard to categorize. Not all of Western Psychology agrees with it's own conceptions of mental disorders, there is a lot of internal debate amongst psychologist and psychiatrists on the nature of mental disorders and a lot are very aware of the constructed nature of them. From what I've noticed there's kind of a split between psychiatry which tends to view things medically/neurologically and psychotherapists/clinicians that put less emphasis on biology and more emphasis on environment (The DSM seems to be based on a medical model of mental disorders). Like the nature nurture debate it probably lies somewhere in the middle.

I was thinking of Foucault's History of Madness of well and Prishmael seemed to cover that. Mental disorders are probably very much bound to societies conceptions of what is good/bad and right/wrong. Depression wasn't even a thing in Japan until western culture sort of introduced it to them. There are books and books on the history of psychiatry and how it came to be (being very critical of psychiatry).

I would look up Thomas Szasz - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz
Peter Breggin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Breggin
Rober Whitaker - http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing/dp/1491513217

I havne't read this one but this book talks about how with American culture spreading around the world, so too has our conceptions of mental illness. I've heard it's very interesting. http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Like-Us-Globalization-American/dp/1416587098

I'm readying a fantastic book about this right now: https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Like-Us-Globalization-American/dp/1416587098
Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche by Ethan Waters.


Here's an excellent article summary: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html

Unfortunately, I don't know that there is a way to have that kind of mobility as a therapist, specifically (somewhat more mobility as a research-only PhD!). And, while I definitely think some of the license mobility stuff is arbitrary and unhelpful, some of it is definitely not. If you are interested, Crazy Like Us by Ethan Watters has a great example of how well meaning and perfectly qualified therapists can enter another culture and cause psychological damage due to their lack of understanding of interventions that are justified within that particular cultural context -- https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Like-Us-Globalization-American/dp/1416587098

I don't know where you are at in your life currently, but it may be worth just living your life for a bit and taking time to clarify what your career values actually are. (E.g. if living in another country is a top priority right now, you could join the Peace Corps or something along those lines!) A career counselor might be good to chat with, as well.

Thank you for the sources. Globalization of law...that would be such an interesting topic to research. Plus, travelling/living outside of the US is something everyone should do more of.


You would love Crazy Like Us, which deals with the fascinating topic of the globalization (read: americanization) of psychological diagnosis.