Why the 3rd World is Fighting Modernization

1. The assumptions of the pioneers of scientific psychiatry about the negative influences of modern western civilization on mental health were not unfounded;
2. Rapid Westernizing modernization of tradition-directed societies has been shown to have pathogenic effects on social and mental functioning, and these pathogenic effects are especially deleterious for tribal societies.
3. The further exploration and identification of the psychiatric sequelae of rapid sociocultural change and the working out of preventive measures are today among the
   greatest challenges confronting transcultural psychiatry.
-- http://www.mentalhealth.com/newslet/tp9901.html

It is these three factors which have had Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and much of the 3rd World wonder if Americanization is worth the suffering.

For people not currently treated for mental illness but treated within the socio-cultural framework (via shamans and medicine men) are able to be integrated back into society, either due to remission of their transient psychoses or initiation into the magico-religious setting to replace the shaman they were "cured" by.

Yet it is the fear of psychosis felt by society which stigmatizes the mentally ill regardless of culture.

The true fear of undeveloped nations is that rapid urbanization would overwhelm the often underfunded and underdeveloped health-care system.

As well, the replacement of shamans and medicine men with psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers would imply that the ancient healers would become marginalized and not integrated into the urban landscape as a vital link to the nation's cultural traditions at first.

However, Africa seems ripe to have a civilized African be both priest and shaman, doctor and medicine man.

Indeed, it is possible to integrate cultural tradition with Westernized medicine, so that no loss of cultural tradition is incurred.

Let's hope that America does not force a loss of tradition in the new nations born in the ashes of Yugoslavia.

Let's also hope that both Afghanistan and Iraq manage to retain the best that is of imams and of psychiatrists to take care of the shell-shocked.

And let us hope that the Wahabis' influence dies so that the most enlightened of Islam revives the equality of men and women in their rich culture.

My Rant on the Stresses of Daily Life and its Cure

You're sitting in gridlock during rush hour that you indirectly participate in creating by being overly productive beyond sustainability.

Later on the stress leads to autoimmune disorders, and many of us just ask for pills for our ills, which cascades into mental illness, depression, CV disease, diabetes etc.

And what do we do on weekends? Rather than living sober, we might even drink and/or drug recreationally.

All that living on the edge just makes the cells poop out. So, is the well examined life still the good life?

IDK, but the #1 improvement to one's health is to walk 5 miles 4 days of the week.

That's 0.8 miles or 8 city blocks a day. So the optimal for most people is to live that far from work, and be a walking commuter.

FWIW I don't drink or use drugs recreationally. Instead, I use one and only one drug medically as a sleep aid: mirtazapine.

Right now, I meditate a lot and, my goal is to get at least a few miles of walking done.

Privatisation of Health Care Risky

Reference: http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/map_usa.html

Corruption will run rampant, and children and families will be hurt in the process of increased profits.

Most likely, privatisation of the prison system will follow, and associated abuses will plague the industry.

Thus, health care for profit and prison for profit will not benefit the patient and prisoner.

Instead, it will just worsen social ills even more.

Using the Mad to Save the Mad

Sociologically, magico-religious healing plays a central and positive role. The magic and faith in the healing powers of the shaman aids in strengthening the group, tribe or caste by defining a common foe, and in identifying the evil, invisible spirit that has been causing illness.

In this way, it is possible to control one’s own environment and the immediate neighbourhood and to influence it.

Moreover, the healing ritual of the shaman late into the night helps to sublimate difficult somatic instincts and to channel them in a socially acceptable and legal way, without being stigmatized in the society as being abnormal or an ill-person.

In our society we have abnormal and ill people who are stigmatized daily as "mentally ill." While being educated about their illness and treated, the medication may affect them so that they are unable to work when exposed to the stresses of the modern workplace.

At the same time, conventional medicine has a stranglehold on the people. If one is a shaman, then most doctors will jealously guard their territory and look down upon alternative forms of healing, even to the point of subjecting shamans to public ridicule and even stigmatizing them as mentally ill and hospitalizing them. All this does is make modern medicine look bad.

While traditional folk medicine has a long tradition in Nepal, it must not be forgotten that what is folk medicine now used to be common practice. It wasn't until the 19th century that doctors began to believe in the disease model of health. Since then, health-care may have made leaps and bounds technologically but overall it's also created problems especially within psychiatry.

If we think of each potential schizophrenic as a would-be shaman, ignorant of hir role in society, then we have here a pool of new medical workers who can augment the hospitals and doctors in their work. While it will be tough to weed out people who are too sick to decide the best health-care for others, the results will be worth it because we will have trained health-care workers supporting doctors and hospitals.

Rather than medicating a potential schizophrenic, it would be more humane to have hir employed. Since the only purpose of medication is social control, this is malpractice. For mentally ill people who are employed suffer less from their illness than their unemployed brothers and sisters.

Note that the shaman is not schizophrenic because rather than being impaired by anxiety and fear, he is channeling his anxiety and fear in socially acceptable way, rather than being plagued by insomnia's nightmares and the descent into mania and madness.