Culture & Mental Health

i just read this paper in front of about 100 psychology undergraduates at UCLA in my culture and mental health class...what an honor to be able to share with them...

         There are often times when culture is not only revealed to us in interpersonal experiences, but also in encountering larger mindsets and the resulting institutions of a particular culture.  In our American psychiatric culture, the DSM has been considered the most useful tool in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.  The DSM reduces all individuals to labels given based on observable behaviors, practically ignoring completely the internal processes happening within the individual that requires understanding and usually some interpretation.  We see this even when trying to understand individuals in their cultural contexts and how difficult it is to really grasp this with our DSM based diagnostic system.  This is typical of the Western mindset desiring rational scientific explanations for most everything we can observe.

            My experience with Western psychiatry was one of helplessness and hopelessness.  At a very young age, I began showing signs of mental disturbances.  It was not until the age of 18 that I began to require some serious help.  Naturally, I turned to the psychological professionals provided to me through my health care provider.  I was diagnosed with both depression and attention deficit disorder and medicated accordingly.  For the next eight years, I was on over 50 different types of psychotropic medication.  I also attribute this to the booming Western pharmaceutical industry and the capitalistic mechanisms perpetuating this epidemic. It was the type of situation that no Western doctor was equipped to understand and I was what became "quite the complicated case".  It was seemingly an open and shut chemical imbalance situation.  I had no severe or even minor trauma growing up other than questioning at a young age the "meaning of life".  In a way, I was existentially tortured and my mind just would not shut off and this resulted in behaving in very reckless and practically psychotic manner.  The doctors began to suggest electroshock therapy.  I just could not function.

            Then, upon one reckless night, I sustained a head injury where within one week, my entire life changed.  It absolutely defied any Western explanation.  I suppose the only way it can be explained behaviorally was similar to those who have encountered a near death experience.  I relate to this, in retrospect after doing some of my own research in fields such as transpersonal psychology.  There was nothing romantic like "seeing the Light" or anything like that, but within one week, I quit school, quit my marriage, quit therapy and quit medication.  I knew I would be just fine.  I experienced an inner peace that with Eastern influenced practices such as meditation and yoga, I am able to maintain.

            Just like Western culture reflects in their approach to medicine, the nature of the Spirit is rarely, if ever, taken into consideration when examining an individuals psyche.  This is interesting as "psyche" translates as "soul".  Nowhere in the DSM, the "bible of psychology" does "existentially tortured" appear.  It simply lists behaviors and symptoms and tries to reduce the individual into some category.  Now, I understand this to be quite effective and enough of a treatment for most, but this was definitely not my experience. What was at stake for me was not only my mental health, but the desire to live life, to do anything else besides "kill time".  It was not until I had this trans-rational experience that recovery became possible. 

            In addition to the Westernized professionals, I too was immersed in the Western mindset and was waiting for the magic pill.  I too had bought into the "instant fix" idea that is associated with the American way.  It is what the doctors told me.  It was in their books.  I trusted my doctors and I trusted their books.  Unfortunately, these both fell short when really trying to understand the internal nature of my individual psyche and the complicated inner mechanisms of the mind.  The mainstream Western perspective on psychology was too reductionistic to handle a basic spiritual longing that other cultures acknowledge and address. 

            It is my hope that eventually, Western views on psychology will expand to include the broad spectrum of potential internal experiences one may encounter for the rich entirety of human potential extends so much further that what is currently acknowledged by the DSM.