Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche“A blistering and truly original work of reporting and analysis, uncovering America’s role in homogenizing how the world defines wellness and healing” (Po Bronson). In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad. It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon. But is it possible America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for? American-style depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anorexia have begun to spread around the world like contagions, and the virus is us. Traveling from Hong Kong to Sri Lanka to Zanzibar to Japan, acclaimed journalist Ethan Watters witnesses firsthand how Western healers often steamroll indigenous expressions of mental health and madness and replace them with our own. In teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we have been homogenizing the way the world goes mad. |
Contents
1 | |
9 | |
chapter 2 | 65 |
chapter 3 | 127 |
chapter 4 | 141 |
The MegaMarketing of Depression in Japan | 187 |
conclusion | 197 |
The Global Economic Crisis and | 249 |
sources | 257 |
Acknowledgments | 293 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abdulridha adolescence Amatruda American Amina Anorexia nervosa anorexics antidepressants Applbaum Argenti-Pillen asked became become began behavior biomedical body brain caused chinese clinical counselors critical cross-cultural cultural beliefs debriefing dentsu describe diagnosis disaster disease distress doctors drug companies DSM-IV eating disorders effect event experience Expressed Emotion family members feel Glaxosmithkline Global healing hemed hong kong hospital human ideas interventions Japan Japanese Jiao Journal of Psychiatry kimwana kirmayer kitanaka lee’s living McGruder meaning mega-marketing mental health mental illness mind neurasthenia one’s oshima patients Paxil person population Post-traumatic stress disorder problem professional psychological psychological trauma Psychosocial Ptsd reactions remarkable reported researchers Review schizophrenia self-starvation serotonin shazrin social spirit possession sri lanka ssris story suffering suicide survivors symptom pool talk therapy tion told Transcultural Psychiatry trauma counseling treatment tsunami understand University violence Western young women zanzibar