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| "It seems that Americans are in the midst of a raging epidemic of mental illness, at least as judged by the increase in the numbers treated for it." (Angell 6) Credit goes to National Institute of Mental Health at www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/SMI_AASR.shtml |
Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, writes about
a worrying trend: mental illnesses, as well as prescription psychoactive drug
use, seem to have been on the rise since the 1980s. The essay focuses on the
following questions: whether psychoactive drugs work, whether the number of
mental illnesses is truly increasing or if specialists are recognizing problems
that were always present, or whether the reason behind the apparent increase is
simply that there are now too many criteria for mental illnesses. To do this,
Angell analyzes the information presented in three books on these topics
written by members of the medical profession.
Angell wants to bring this medical conflict to the lay reader, as
she tries to make things easier to understand. She defines terms such as “double-blind”
and “neurotransmitter” that may be confusing to the reader, and gives
simplified explanations as to how processes like the brain’s chemical releases work.
This makes it much easier for the reader to comprehend what she is writing
about. Instead of just supplying the reader with a steady stream of vague anecdotes
to support her point (a method she criticizes psychiatrists for practicing),
she uses statistics and quotes. For example, she writes about how in one random
study, 46 percent of adults met criteria for having at least one mental illness
(Angell 6). She also divides information into sections; each book she writes
about has its own section, including the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders and its problems. As this subject
is not one that many readers would be familiar with, slowly feeding them each
topic makes all of the information easier to handle.
Many would think that Angell means to
turn readers against psychiatry or drug companies, even though she does mention
that many of these people would swear that drugs work. This is supported by the
fact that most of her essay attacks the use of drugs and precious few words are
used in support of drugs. However, towards the end, it seems that she thinks
there are merely doubts about the effectiveness of drugs, not that they are
harmful, as she writes, “…. We need to stop thinking of psychoactive drugs as
the best, and often the only, treatment for mental illnesses or emotional
distress” (Angell 27) Therefore, her purpose is unclear. If she meant to turn
readers against drugs, she succeeded, and if she intended to do the opposite,
she most likely has not.
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