Is anyone else familiar with the ethnography Of Two Minds? (Any other anthros here?) I am fairly certain RP includes one the author's claims in one of his more recent letters, something along the lines of "Health is a social science, and public health is nothing less than politics on a grand scale" (I am fairly certain I found it in the mentioned book, but couldn't find it with a second reading. That being said, I do clearly remember RP associating the author with the claim). While I do not find that disagreeable, I did find the rest of the volume to be rife with egregious contradictions. Primarily, the author, speaking as someone who agrees with the techniques, theories, and justifications of "biological" psychiatry seems to be oblivious to the profession's main hypocrisy (or she didn't feel it necessary to explicitly acknowledge the discrepancy), in that psychiatrists who prescribe medications very rarely make any attempt to understand what the drugs they are using are actually doing within the relevant biological context, but claim to be treating a medical condition.
To be precise...
“[Clinical Instructor] ‘when it gets down to the gamma-2 level receptors, then it’s religion, not science.’ [Luhrmann] He mean that the psychiatrist’s basic skill is knowing how to use medications, that only the overzealous care exactly how they work” (26).
and
“[a psychopharmacological textbook] is full of incomprehensible sentences like these …:’Receptor subtyping for the serotonergic neurons preceded at a very rapid pace, with at least four major categories of 5-HT receptor, each further sub-typed depending upon pharmacological or molecular properties. 5-HT receptors are a good example of how the description of neurotransmitter receptors is in constant flux, and is constantly being revised.’ Most psychiatrists have last encountered such sentences in medical school, and the words have no relationship to what they do day to day as clinicians” (54)."
There are plenty of other instances where the author contradicts herself or engages in victim-blaming, but I do not have the book right now so I cannot offer any more specific examples.
Anyone else have any experiences with or thoughts about the profession? Or the author's other works?
To be precise...
“[Clinical Instructor] ‘when it gets down to the gamma-2 level receptors, then it’s religion, not science.’ [Luhrmann] He mean that the psychiatrist’s basic skill is knowing how to use medications, that only the overzealous care exactly how they work” (26).
and
“[a psychopharmacological textbook] is full of incomprehensible sentences like these …:’Receptor subtyping for the serotonergic neurons preceded at a very rapid pace, with at least four major categories of 5-HT receptor, each further sub-typed depending upon pharmacological or molecular properties. 5-HT receptors are a good example of how the description of neurotransmitter receptors is in constant flux, and is constantly being revised.’ Most psychiatrists have last encountered such sentences in medical school, and the words have no relationship to what they do day to day as clinicians” (54)."
There are plenty of other instances where the author contradicts herself or engages in victim-blaming, but I do not have the book right now so I cannot offer any more specific examples.
Anyone else have any experiences with or thoughts about the profession? Or the author's other works?
