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A review by erboe501
Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness by Roy Richard Grinker
5.0
While the premise of Grinker's book isn't anything I haven't heard in my reading on Disability Studies, I did enjoy his evidence. I hadn't ever approached the construction of mental illness from a military health point of view. I knew that military science has influenced many developments across the board for the lay population. That is especially true for how we understand mental health.
The diagnosis of nonconforming individuals with "stigmatized" mental health conditions is a way to control and police all of our behavior. I found anthropologist Ruth Benedict's words, quoted in the book, especially clarifying: “The concept of the normal is properly a variant of the concept of the good. It is that which society has approved.”
On the other hand, medical professionals might feel pressure to diagnosis a patient with a certain condition the patient doesn't have in order to help the patient receive benefits or compensation or reduce stigma.
There's also a lot of interesting discussion on how we understand the mind and body to be connected--or not connected, and how Western society can more easily process ailments of the body we can see.
Another interesting discussion: how modern-day ECT (basically electro-shock therapy) has been honed to a much safer and effective degree than the horrors of the mid-20th century practice would lead me to expect. But the stigma trailing those earlier practitioners discourages those who might benefit from the practice from getting that help.
The diagnosis of nonconforming individuals with "stigmatized" mental health conditions is a way to control and police all of our behavior. I found anthropologist Ruth Benedict's words, quoted in the book, especially clarifying: “The concept of the normal is properly a variant of the concept of the good. It is that which society has approved.”
On the other hand, medical professionals might feel pressure to diagnosis a patient with a certain condition the patient doesn't have in order to help the patient receive benefits or compensation or reduce stigma.
There's also a lot of interesting discussion on how we understand the mind and body to be connected--or not connected, and how Western society can more easily process ailments of the body we can see.
Another interesting discussion: how modern-day ECT (basically electro-shock therapy) has been honed to a much safer and effective degree than the horrors of the mid-20th century practice would lead me to expect. But the stigma trailing those earlier practitioners discourages those who might benefit from the practice from getting that help.