Thanks John, this looks interesting and useful.

Related to your comment about resistance to the relevance of SDOH to
suicide, I have found that many SDOHers seem to drop their critical SDOH
perspective when any so-called mental health issue is discussed, deferring
to psychiatric experts and accepting medicalization and individualisation of
distress, suicide, problematic child behaviour etc. SDOHers are often happy
to quote statistics of so-called mental illness as evidence of socially
determined objective morbidity rather than socially constructed reductionist
framing/interpretation of social problems.

Cheers
Melissa

-----Original Message-----
From: Social Determinants of Health [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John
Macdonald
Sent: Saturday, 7 January 2012 9:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SDOH] Levine 2012 7 Reasons America's Mental Health Industry
Is a Threat to Our Sanity. Application to suicide

Melissa Raven has done us all a great service by sharing this article

It is not just the mental health profession (often overworked) and the
pharma industry who are obstacles to a more rational and compassionate view
of people in distress, we have created a popular culture which seems set to
medicalise sorrow and despair.

We have done a little study with the wonderful Suicide Prevention Network on
the Central Coast of NSW. The study  is called "Pathways to Despair"
(http://issuu.com/mhirc/docs/mhirc_2.pathways/1) because, however useful it
may be to label some people as being "depressed", this can often be another
way to hide from the social factors behind such tragic events. A famous and
otherwise great doctor in Australia continues to say that 90% of people
killing themselves are "mentally ill".

A plea: this study is done on men. I have found an unfortunate resistance
even in progressive SDOH colleagues to any suggestion that SDOH is an
essential way forward to understand not only suicide, but male health. If
you feel resistance to this notion, please exercise your rational and
compassionate nature when you read the paper, which is subtitled The Social
Determinants of Male Suicide.

John

Professor John Macdonald
Foundation Chair in Primary Health Care,
Director, Men's Health Information and Resource Centre
University of Western Sydney
Box 1797 Penrith 2751 Australia
061245701123
Fax 061245701522
Mobile 0404008760

________________________________
From: Social Determinants of Health [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Melissa
Raven [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 07 January 2012 04:17
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SDOH] Levine 2012 7 Reasons America's Mental Health Industry Is a
Threat to Our Sanity

7 Reasons America's Mental Health Industry Is a Threat to Our Sanity
Drug industry corruption, scientifically unreliable diagnoses and
pseudoscientific research have compromised the values of the psychiatric
profession.
January 2, 2012 |
Why do some of us become dissident mental health professionals?
..
7. Diversion from Societal, Cultural and Political Sources of Misery
When we hear the words disorder, disease or illness, we think of an
individual in need of treatment, not of a troubled society in need of
transformation. Mental illness expansionism diverts us from examining a
dehumanizing society.
In addition to pathologizing normal behavior, the mental health profession
also diverts us from examining a society that creates the
ingredients-helplessness, hopelessness, passivity, boredom, fear, and
isolation-that cause emotional difficulties. We are diverted from the
reality that many emotional problems are natural human reactions to loss in
our society of autonomy and community. Thus, the mental health profession
not only has financial value for drug companies but it has political value
for those at the top of societal hierarchies who want to retain the status
quo.
Today, a handful of dissident mental health professionals do challenge and
resist their profession's dehumanizing standard practicies. I know several
of these dissidents, and they are the only psychiatrists, psychologists and
mental health professionals that I have any respect for.
http://www.alternet.org/story/153634/7_reasons_america's_mental_health_indus
try_is_a_threat_to_our_sanity?page=entire


Melissa Raven
Psychiatric epidemiologist and policy analyst
Adjunct lecturer, Discipline of Public Health, Flinders University, South
Australia
Member, Healthy Skepticism
www.healthyskepticism.org<https://email.uws.edu.au/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>







To leave, manage or join list:
https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1

To leave, manage or join list:
https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1

To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1