>>About the link described
between
> poverty and mental health,
>>I want to ask, is it mental illness that is getting talked
>>about (which by definition has genetic roots),
>>
>There is no hard evidence to support a genetic basis for what gets
>labeled 'mental illness' no matter what the context. Psychiatric
>diagnoses of any kind are merely subjective value judgments.

Graeme, thank you for your reply.
>
>>Naming something mental illness/health implies a very
>>different solution from calling it the distress produced
>>by poverty.
>>
>Not necessarily. It boils down to a case of psychiatric diagnoses being
>inherently subjective and biased, in combination with the inherent bias
>directed against poor people. It comes as no surprise that a
>discriminated-against population is more likely to be subjected to a set
>of 'diagnoses' that is inherently discriminatory. It's just one more way
>of suppressing and invalidating certain peoples' voices.

And I would add, making their circumstances invisible, and in this,
unavailable to challenge.
>
>>Naming has huge implications. Consider the
>>work of Horovitz, a psychiatrist who rejects the widespread
>>overuse of the mental illness(health) construct model
>>and argues that what we look at and refer to as
>>mental illness is mostly 'socially induced distress.'
>>

I misspelled Horwitz' name yesterday in my haste to reply yesterday. I
must correct that error now. The full reference for the book I mentioned
is -

Horwitz, A.V. (2002). Creating mental illness. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.

I deplore the fact that people seem to be so out of the loop when it comes
to critiques of psychiatry and psychology. Where are the spaces in which
students are being encouraged
to explore the history of such critiques, and their multiple branches
(antipsychiatry, more recently critical and radical psychology, feminism,
anti-racist perspectives critical of
psychiatry and psychology, and the history of abuses against LGBT
perpetrated in psychiatry and psychology). It is very difficult to
criticize these fields these days and I notice it's very difficult for
people located in these fields to be vocal about their criticisms.
Everyone working
in these fields (and their friends) insists that they are good people
doing good work and above any criticism about what they are implicated in.
Meanwhile we wonder why it is that it becomes harder and harder to
confront social inequities. They are systematically obscured
behind what you refer to Graeme as a personal deficits model.

Those who cooperate with the power and practices these knowledge systems
produce and maintain have, I believe, an obligation to be educated about
multiple critiques of both psychiatry and psychology. I think educators
have an obligation to create spaces for students to explore and build on
these critiques. I think learning about these critiques isn't enough
however. I think we need to take these critiques and what they imply
seriously, and that's where things become difficult. We seem to be into
another period of very deep collective amnesia in which most people have
forgotten there ever was an antipsychiatry movement, that was supported by
many in psychiatry I might add, and don't think to  wonder why they don't
know more about it, a time in which feminists think that terms like
"mental health issues" is suddenly friendly or benign, in which
researchers and others think they can invoke the term "mental health"
without it meaning they are talking about a psychiatric model of mental
illness, in which the widespread control of psychiatry and psychology has
gotten so enormous that it's invisible, and people imagine in the context
of that invisibility that when they use the term mental health, they can
freely imbue it with their own personal meanings. This is all deeply
problematic and erroneous.

>Amen to that, but I would take it one step further. To my mind *any use*
>of the 'mental illness/health' construct is overuse.

I agree with you again. I am glad you take it a step further. Horwitz's
work could go further, I agree.

>Peoples' emotional
>or mental distress is always circumstantial/environmental in nature. It
>does not occur in a social vacuum. Attributing it to abnormal pathology
>is merely using one more 'personal deficit' model, which in this case is
>all the more insidious because it is a practice cloaked in
>pseudo-science and false compassion.

Yes.
>
>>Where are the critical voices on this issue in the SDOH
>>community?
>>
>This lack of analysis is a serious problem among supposedly progressive
>individuals in general. Folks all over have fallen prey to the myth that
>psychiatry is in any way based upon compassion or real science. It is
>(in truth) merely one more sophisticated mechanism of oppression and
>social control.

Again I agree. But is this about falling prey to a myth or is it about
cooperating with a myth because it's convenient to do so. It's hard to
find research funds or work in some areas
if you don't endorse mental health ideology.
>
my comment re Horwitz' book was:
>  It's
>>an important read but at the same time a dangerous
>>one because to accept or adopt Horovitz' arguments
>>means you will be out of step with the prevaling mental
>>health ideology supported by Health Canada and by
>>health promotion agendas and it would seem by those
>>working in the area of social determinants of health.
>>Reader be warned!
>>
>All Health Canada does is to promote the existing medical/pharmaceutical
>agenda. It was never intended to serve as a critical voice or to
>challenge the existing medical status quo. To my mind anything that
>causes people to take a hard second look at Health Canada's position on
>these issues can only be beneficial.
>More good reading on this subject is anything by Dr. Peter Breggin.
>Breggin is a dissident psychiatrist based in Bethesda, MD. who has
>written extensively (and critically) about the practices of his own
>field of medical specialty. He has a website as well (www.breggin.com).
>
I happen to be a member of the ICSPP and a supporter of Peter Breggin's
work. This organization has had a number of conferences which can be
researched at the weblink
provided. Those who want to learn more would be advised to take guidance
from this website and look into the work of the many people who have
presented at these conferences.  The next upcoming conference promises to
be another great event. See the links below.

http://icspp.org/content/view/90/55/  (About ICSPP)
http://www.icspp.org/  (about the next conference, 2005)
http://icspp.org/content/category/16/82/47/  (lists of
recommended references)

Linda Green

____________________________
Linda Green, OISE/UT
Counselling for Community Settings
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