Delusional, An Anatomy of an Epidemic - Essay Example

? Delusional: An Anatomy of an Epidemic Various negativities have been problems in the minds of people. They have been studied in the field of medicine and psychiatry and has scientific basis. People have suffered from those conditions for many years since it was first discovered. They have caused various troubles around the world in terms of psychiatric conditions and rocked the field of psychiatry and medicine. Through the years, people have made efforts especially those in the sciences to find solutions to problems through experimentations, observations and analyses. They have done series of tests in laboratories and published reports about their findings. They have also been done in the field of medicine. Under the field of medicine, psychiatry lies there wherein reports, experiments and thorough studies are conducted to help patients with mental disabilities and illnesses. Usually the ones used to help patients with undesirable mental conditions rely on chemical drugs to ease the pain or correct certain imbalances in their brains. Chemicals are used to alter their behavior especially when the patients are behaving outside the norms like being in a catatonic state. The use of drugs like for depressed people may have side effects. Side effects may affect the patients negatively. Drugs may cure the patients and help with their mental conditions but other illnesses may arise because of side effects. Other organs may possibly be negatively affected as the drugs may serve as toxins to those organs like heart, liver, kidney and stomach. The use of drugs on health mental patients have been the subject of the book made by Robert Whitaker. Robert Whitaker is a renowned writer in the field of science especially with the medical field. He even became an editor for the publications of the medical school of Harvard. He published other books prior to the one where talked about delusions. He had been an award-winning author and writer and a controversial one. His book entitled Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America is a controversial book by Robert Whitaker where he tackled delusion as the cause of the mental illness growth in USA. Various issues can be connected to delusion and the growing rate of mental illness patients and all of them would be discussed on the paper. Delusion has been defined many times by many sources from textbooks to dictionaries as the term pertains to the false belief or state of resistance to the reality as the person does not accept logical explanations. It can be used in various contexts but it is commonly linked with psychiatric conditions like schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorders. The aforementioned psychiatric conditions are illnesses which the medical field has combated through the years using techniques and formulations created based on years of studies via experimentations. Scientists, doctors and psychiatrists in particular have relied upon those observations and analyses recorded via published scientific reports and journals to verify the efficacies of the methods to cure the psychiatric conditions. Whitaker had debated about those methods especially with the use of chemical drugs. Chemical drugs are formulated in laboratories and manufactured in bulk by licensed pharmaceutical companies as those are dangerous if no regulations are made. Those manufacturers have the right to create those products based on the formulations recommended by the experts who studied particular cases. Despite of their reported efficacies, they pose hazards or risks to the patients. They have side-effects that can advertently affect other parts of the body. Patients may suffer other diseases or weakened immunity or particular organs may become damaged because of those synthetic substances being taken in for their psychiatric conditions. Whitaker has been concerned with the growing mentality of people about drugs and how those can cure the conditions of psychiatric patients considered to be ill. If no proper parameters are taken, misdiagnosis may occur which is very dangerous. Take into consideration the use of those drugs should be for emergency purposes only or for short-term use. Once those are used for a long time, chemical imbalance may occur that may lead to more serious medical conditions instead of providing a more balanced state for the patients. The introduction of those drugs has not improved the figures of the cases of mental health patients being cured. In fact, those even aggravated the number of cases as people in America become more prawn to those mental conditions. More Americans were hospitalized and sent to asylums and nursing homes. Despite of the actions to provide medical support coming from the federal government, the growth rate of patients have pushed the State to look for ways to save money and was not able to address the real cause of the phenomenon. Another problem that can be seen in the issue is the business behind the psychotic drugs. Since it is backed by rich people, they will not easily give up the production of such substances as they have invested money on them and expect to get a return in the form of profit. The government may not be able to control them easily as people may be corrupted by money especially when greed comes in. Those people in the business may do everything that they can just to keep their companies operating despite of the issues that arise regarding their efficacy and safety. It has also been noted that children with difficulty in concentrating and behaving according to what most adults would think as proper are given with medicines to make them stay calm. They have been provided with a wide range of drugs until they grow up which may severely affect the natural growth and abilities of the children. The result would be a nation filled with disabled adults of the next generation. It could have a big impact not only at the personal level but also in terms of the economic performance and the status of a country. It may even go beyond that as the prevailing practices may spread to other nations and the world would be filled with children given with a lot of drugs. Later on, the world will have more disabled people than ever before. Delusional may not only be restricted within the medical definition as it can also be applied in other issues as well. Basically, delusion pertains to the rejection of the reality despite of the logical bases and support to debunk the existing beliefs. It can be said that it has been the prevailing notion in the West as people rely on substances to correct the psychological behaviors of people while dealing massive damages in the long run. Another issue would be in terms of rationality of people. It can be delusional because most of the people think that the logical component of the thinking of humans can be separated from other faculties like spiritual, emotional, sensual and existential. Because of such prevailing belief, many problems sprout in the society that some may consider as social evils. Actually those consider to be social evils have been responses of people to the delusions of trying to isolate the logic from other components of the mind. Holism has been reduced in the picture of the world as people tend to focus on specialized fields, functional approaches and compartmentalized ways in dealing with things. Problems have not been solved thoroughly as conditions become more important than emotions and the natural order. Case-to-case basis has been prevalent and covered the nature which supposedly has provided harmony in the things in orderly manner. Sometimes the human beings have been the cause of another set of problems to solve. Delusion can lead to alienation of people as they focus on logic, a “cold” serious stuff without the “colors” of life expressed by emotions. Human life has been separated and it may seem to be the problem. Some people even do not believe in the spirit as they say that science is superior. It may be connected to delusions because what is only seen is the physical entity of things. The realm of the reflection of the concept of the invisible to pattern those through perception and make them appear in the physical world has not been included by people. Another issue with delusion is the orientation of people toward numbers, the quantitative side of things. It is not said to be a bad things because quantitative means have advanced human knowledge and produced various technologies that are helpful in everyday life. Sometimes it can be problematic especially when people give a bias over quantity rather than quality or details. It is even used to measure the potentialities of each person especially in the educational system. Too much use of numbers to gauge the abilities has actually caused learners to drop-out of schools or hurt their feelings and motivations. It can be the cause in the increase in mental illness patients recorded in America despite of the efforts to actually lower down the number of cases. In the traditional education system, students are ranked based on numerical grades. They have been labeled as winners and losers based on theoretical tests and controlled practical exams. Those who lag behind have developed the notion of being inferior to those top-ranking students and may eventually not perform to the fullest of their potential. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the existence of the skills and abilities of people which the educational system may not have recognized when it runs purely on numerical grades and quantitative measurements of the abilities. They are more focused on the accuracy of the actions alone and have not provided the circumstances of the individual learners. They are assumed to be in the same conditions being controlled by the educators. The form may seem to be a big experiment and using the students as guinea pigs or laboratory rats for the educational experiments. Another application of delusion is in the form of technology. People have been engaged and reliant on technology. People travel today using vehicles and high-powered transportations like bullet trains and airplanes. People also rely on electronic household cleaners instead of manually sweeping and wiping the houses or offices. Businesses and offices use computers for faster storage, retrieval and sharing of information and for transaction purposes. Many people even use the computer and internet for personal affairs especially with the rise of social media instead of going out and meeting friends and others. It is true that technology has allowed people to perform their tasks faster than doing those activities manually. Despite of that advantage, some have become too reliant to technology that they do not know what to do whenever technology becomes unavailable. It may seem that the life is ruined and tomorrow will cease to exist without technology. Instead of encouraging people to be independent, they have become reliant on the gadgets. The development of the human civilization has also spurred up the case of viewing the ancient ones to be inferior to the modern ones just like the case when people believe that writing-based civilization is better than the oral-based civilization. It shows discrimination between the use of language and media. It is also a form of delusion. As the delusion is feed up, hatred grows and may sprout conflicts and problems that the society has to handle. Instead of unity despite of diversity, people may have more conflicts and separations because of delusion instead of mutual understanding. In terms of languages, delusion may be seen if one language is viewed to be better than the others. Discrimination and imbalance perspective with the languages can give problems to people. Hatred, conflicts, pain and other negativities may come out of it. Such requires thorough understanding to view other languages as equal. They have been developed because of different circumstances like places, people, culture and many more. Another issue would be the view of humans as superior to animals may be considered as a delusion. In the scientific community, it is acceptable if the evolutionary linage is the basis since only human beings have the most developed logical faculty and most developed brain as the studies have found out. It has also been concluded by various scientists as well. It is rather a narrow view on things instead of looking at organisms including plants as equals in terms of life. Everybody has life and everyone exists although each is different from one another. The biased views of humans being superior may be used as an excuse to perform animal maltreatment like killing them for no good reason or for profit. They may also be butchered to be used as source of meat even though they are not typically taken care of to serve that purpose. For example, dogs are killed in some nations to be used as source of meat. It may be linked to abuses which may be seen to the extreme when people colonize others just like holocaust and slavery that exist because of racial prejudice. It has been a classic example but a very controversial one that has sprouted various movements for equality among people in the whole world. Racial discrimination is also a form of delusion. It is like looking at people as objects instead of seeing them as equal beings. Delusion is really a state of escaping or being out of the reality. It is like a dream which is even worse than a normal dream. People would think of it as being inside an illusion or a world created by a person with his own perception without considering the state of his surroundings and other people. Proven findings should have also been considered regarding things instead of relying on own perceptions only because it may cause delusions and conflicts eventually. Those delusions lead to mental illnesses or disorders in the balance of the mind of people because of the detachment from reality where all people live, move, breathe and interact. It can also be used as an excuse to trick others. Read More