SY 624
Society and Psyche: Critical Perspectives in Mental Health
Fall 2015
Instructor: Dr. Juanne N. Clarke
Office Hour: Wednesday 520-620 (or by appointment)
Office: Woods 5-150
Email: jclarke@wlu.ca
Extension: 3516
Course Description:
The interests of many disciplines are related to issues of psyche & society
including, among others, sociology, history, anthropology, political economy,
epidemiology, psychology and psychiatry, and various neurosciences. This course uses
literature from a variety of fields to seek to understand the social contexts for the
construction, production and treatment of mental health issues today in Canada as well
as, in historical and cross-cultural context.
The course will begin with a reading of two historical texts. They will provide a
critical and realist foundation for the rest of the course. The subsequent weeks will be
divided into three large thematic areas: the construction, the production and the treatment
of mental disorders..
Course Requirements:
Presentations and article critiques/summaries
The assigned readings are laid out below in a week- to- week schedule. We will choose
from among them for class presentation and discussion. We will all read the assigned
articles and books each week. Each article will have a particular presenter who will come
to class prepared with a two- page commentary/critique to distribute along with three
questions, based on the reading. As well each student not presenting on a particular
article should come prepared for discussion with at least one question and three (defined)
concepts from each of the assigned weekly readings.
Guidelines for two page commentary/critique/: Critically appraise the readings, focusing
on in what ways and how well the authors contribute to our understanding of sociological
aspects of mental health. Create 3 questions derived from the readings that you think are
important to discuss with the class as a whole. Try to ask questions that make connections
among all the week’s readings, and to prior class readings and discussions. On your
handout to the class list five key concepts (with definitions) from each article to be
discussed Presentation dates will be determined in the first class. Consider and include
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policy implications of the assumptions and findings of each paper.
Research Paper. The paper, about 6000 words long (not including references), is to be
literature review of any focused topic of interest and related to the course. Alternative
topics are welcome. Please discuss your ideas with me before embarking on the paper.
Guidelines:
Describe the current state of theory and research on your topic and identify areas in
which further research is warranted. Critically present findings of key research pieces and
draw out unresolved issues. The review should build toward a nuanced research question.
Alternative types of essays may be negotiated with the instructor.
Research papers are due in my mailbox on the 5th floor of the Woods Building December
15th.
The essay/research paper will contribute 50% to your grade.
The presentations (30%)/commentaries/critiques/questions (20%) will contribute 50%
to your grade.
Weeks One & Two: A critical cross-cultural and historical overview
Whitaker, Robert. (2002), Mad In America. Basic Books: New York, New York.
Whitaker, Robert. (2010). Anatomy of an Epidemic. Random House. New York, New
York.
Week Three: Distress or Disorder: Some Issues in Defining Mental Illness
Horwitz, A. v. (2007). Distinguishing distress from disorder as psychological outcomes
of stressful social arrangements. Health. 11(3): 273-289.
Horwitz, A. (2007). Transforming Normality into Pathology: The DSM and the
Outcomes of Stressful Social arrangements. Journal of Health & Social Behavior.48
(September): 211-222.
Schwartz, S. (2007). Distinguishing distress from disorder as psychological outcomes of
stressful social arrangements: can we and should we? Health. 11(3): 291-299.
Wheaton, B. (2007). The twain meet: distress, disorder and the continuing conundrum of
categories (comment on Horwitz). Health. 11(3): 303-319.
Schizophrenia Treatments: A Critical
Horwitz, A. v. (2007) Response to Schwartz, Mirowsky and Wheaton. Health: 11(3):
321-326.
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Weeks Four & Five: The Expansion of Categories of Mental Illness
Whooley, O. (2010). Diagnostic Ambivalence: psychiatric workarounds and the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Sociology of Health & Illness.
32(3): 452-469.
Rose, N. (2006). Disorders without Borders? The Expanding Scope of Psychiatric
Practice. Biosocieties. 1:465-484.
Westerbeek, J & K. Mutsaers (2008). Depression Narratives: How the Self Became a
Problem. Literature & Medicine. Project Muse. 27(1): 1-21.
Mulder, R. T. (2008). An Epidemic of Depression of the Medicalization of Distress?
Project Muse. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 51(2): 1-11.
Silverman, C. (2008). Critical Review Fieldwork on Another Planet: Social Science
Perspectives on the Autism Spectrum. Biosocieties. 3:325-341.
Frazzetto, G. S. Keenan & I. Sing. (2007). ‘I Bambini e le Droghe’: The Right to Ritalin
vs. the Right to Childhood in Italy. Biosocieties. 2:393-412.
Carpenter-song, E. (2009). Caught in the Psychiatric Net: Meanings and Experiences of
ADHD, Pediatric Bipolar disorder and Mental Health Treatment Among a Diverse Group
of Families in the United States. 33:61-85. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 33:61-85.
Singh, I. (2006). A Framework for Understanding Trends in ADHD Diagnoses and
stimulant Drug Treatment: Schools and schooling as a Case Study. Biosocieties. 1: 439452.
Weeks Six & Seven: Creating & Debating New Diagnoses
Lloyd, S (2006): The clinical Clash over Social Phobia: The Americanization of French
Experiences? Biosocieties. 1:229-249.
Kilshaw, S. (2008). Gulf War Syndrome: A Reaction to Psychiatry’s Invasion of the
Military? Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 32:219-237.
Friberg, T. (2009). Burnout: From Popular Culture to Psychiatric Diagnosis in Sweden.
Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 33:538-558.
Behague, D. P. (2008). The Domains of Psychiatric Practice: From Centre to Periphery.
Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 32:140-151.
Breggin, Peter. (2014). The Rights of Children and Parents in Regard to Children
Receiving Psychiatirc Diagnoses and drugs. Child & Society. 28(3); 231-241.
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Le Francois, B. (2014) Psychiarized Children and their rights: starting the conversation.
Child & Society. 28(3):165-171.
Yoke, R, M. Saleh & R. Giacoma (2014). Sick or Sad? Supporting Palestinian Children
Living in Conditions of Chronic Politica lViolence. Child & Society.28(3): 172-181.
Scott, Susie (2006). The medicalisation of shyness: from social misfits to social fitness.
Sociology of Health and Illness. 28(2): 133-153.
Watters, E. (2010). The Americanization of Mental illness. The New York Times. January
10, 2010.
Luhrman, T. M. (2007). Social Defeat and the Culture of Chronicity: Or Why
Schizophrenia Does So Well Over There and So Badly Here. Culture, Medicine &
Psychiatry. 31: 135-172.
Behague, D. P. (2008). Psychiatry and Military Conscription in Brazil: The Search for
Opportunity and Institutionalized Therapy. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 32: 194-218.
Parry, P. G. Furber & S. Allison (2009). The paediatirc Bipolar Hypothesis: The View
from Australia and New Zealand. Child & Adolescent Mental Health. 14(3): 140-147.
Week Eight & Nine: Other Ways of Looking at the Problem of Mental Illness
Dowbiggin (2009). High Anxieties: The Social Construction of Anxiety Disorders.
Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 54(7): 429-436.
Dumit, J. (2003). Is it Me or My Brain? Depression and Neuroscientific Facts. Journal of
Medical Humanities. 24(1/2): 35Clarke, Juanne (2014). Tracking Governance: Advice to Mothers about Managing the
behaviour of their children.1970-1990. Health, Risk & Society. 15(5): 416-431.
Crossley, N. (2000) Emotions, psychiatry and social order in Health, Medicine & Society:
Key Theories, Future agendas ed. S. J. Williams, J. Gabe & M. Calnan. London:
Routledge (online)
Brown, B. & P. Crawford (2003). The clinical governance of the soul: ‘deep
management’ and the self-regulating subject in integrated community mental health
teams. Social Science & Medicine. 56:67-81.
Nettleton, S. R. Burrows, L. O’Malley & I. Watt. Health e-types? An analysis of the
everyday use of the Internet for health. Information, Communication & Society. 7(4):
531-553.
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Peterson, A. (2003). Governmentality, Critical Scholarship, and the Medical Humanities.
Journal of Medical Humanities. 24(3/4):187-201.
Pilgim, D. & A. Rogers. (2009). Survival and Its Discontents: the case of British
Psychiatry. Sociology of Health & Illness. 31(7):947-961
Week Ten: Mental Illness, Gender and Racialization
Fullagar, S. (2009). Negotiating the neurochemical self: the anti-depressant consumption
in women’s recovery from depression. Health. 13(4): 389-406.
Brewis, A. & K. L.Schmidt (2003). Gender Variation in the Identification of Mexican
Children’s Psychiatric Symptoms. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 17(3): 376-393.
Doucet, S. A. N. L. Letourneau & J. M. Stoppard. (2010). Contemporary Paradigms for
Research Related to Women’s Mental Health. Health Care for Women International.
31:296-312.
McMullen, L. M. & J. M. Stoppard. Women & Depression: A Case study of the
Influence of Feminism in Canadian Psychology. Feminism & Psychology. 16(3): 273288.
Thoits, P. A. Differential Labeling of Mental Illness by Social Status: A New Look at an
Old Problem. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 46 (1): 102-119.
Hirshbein, L. D. (2006). Science, Gender, and the Emergence of Depression in American
Psychiatry, 1952-1980. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 61(2):
187-216.
Oliffe, J. L. & M. Philips. (2008). Men, depression and masculinities: A review and
recommendations. Journal of Mental Health. 5(3): 194-202.
Waite, R. & P. Killian (2009). Perspectives About Depression: Explanatory Models
Among African-American Women. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing. 23(4):323-333.
Ridge, D. & S. Ziebland (2006). “The Old Me Could Never have Done That”: How
People Give Meaning to Recovery Following depression. Qualitative Health Research.
16(8): 1083-1053.
Weeks Eleven & Twelve: Pharmaceuticalization/ Producing Mental Illness
Moynihan, R. & A. Cassels. (2005). Selling Sickness. Vancouver: Greystone Books.
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Angell, M. (2004). Over and above Excess in the Pharmaceutical industry. Canadian
Medical Association Journal. Dec. 7, (12). (online)
Healy, D. (2006). Manufacturing Consensus. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 30:135156.
Martin, E. (2006). Pharmaceutical Virtue. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 30: 157-174.
Applbaum, K. (2009). Getting to yes: Corporate Power and the Creation of a
Psychopharmaceutical Blockbuster. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 33:185-215.
Greene, J. A. (2007). Pharmaceutical Marketing Research and the Prescribing Physician.
Annals of Internal Medicine. 146:742-748.
Greenslit, N. (2006). Depression and Consumption: Psychopharmaceuticals, Branding,
and New Identity practices. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. 29(4):477-502.
Busfield, J. (2004). Mental Health Problems, psychotropic drug technologies and risk.
Health, Risk & Society. 6(4):17-24.
Healy, D. (2006). The Latest Mania: Selling Bipolar Disorder. PLoS Medicine, 3(4):185186. (on-line)
Zakriski, A. L. E. Wheeler, J. Burda & A. Sheilds. (2005). Justifiable
Psychopharmacology or Overzealous Prescription Histories of Psychiatrically
Hospitalized Children. Child and Adolescent Mental Health. 10(1): 16-22.
Phillips, C. B. (2006). Medicine Goes to School: Teachers as Sickness Brokers for
ADHD. PloS Medicine. 3(4):182-183.(on-line)
Clarke, J. N. & A. Gawley. The Triumph of Pharmaceuticals: The Portrayal of
Depression from 1980 to 2005. Administration & Policy in Mental Health. . 36(2): 91101.
Currie, J. (2005) The Marketization of depression: The prescribing of SSRI
Antidepressants to Women. Women & Health Protection Branch. May. (on-line).
Metzl, J. M. & J Angel (2004). Assessing the impact of SSRI antidepressants on popular
notions of women’s depressive illness. Social Science & Medicine. 58:577-584.
Parens, E. & J. Johnston (2010). Controversies concerning the diagnosis and treatment of
bipolar disorder in children. Child & Adolescent Psychiatry & Mental Health. 4(9): 1-14.
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Additional Readings
Sheehan, S. (1982). Is there no place on earth for me? Houghton Mifflin Company:
Boston.
Slater, Lauren (1998). Prozac Diary. Penguin Books: London.
Karp, David. (2006). Is it Me or My Meds? Living with Antidepressants. Harvard
University Press: Cambridge, Mass.
Pearson, Patricia. (2008) A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours & Mine). Random House
Canada: Toronto.
Kramer, Peter, D. (2005) Against Depression. Viking: New York, New York..
Mayes,R, Bagwell, C & J. Erkulwater . (2009) Medicating Children ADHD and Pediatric
Mental Health. Harvard University Press: Cambridge.
Rose, N. (1999) Governing the Soul The Shaping of the Private Self. Second Edition.
Free Association Books: London.
Rose, N. (2006) The Politics of Life Itself: biomedicine, power and subjectivity in the
twenty-first century. Princeton University press: Princeton
Rose, N. (1996). Inventing Ourselves Psychology, Power and Personhood. Cambridge
University press: Cambridge.
Busfield, J. (1986). Managing Madness. Hutchinson & Company:London.
Foucault, M. (1973). The Birth of the Clinic. Pantheon Books: New York.
Foucault, M. (1965). Madness and Civilization A History of Insanity in the age of
Reason. Pantheon Books: New York.
Foucault, M. (1976). Mental Illness and psychology. Harper and Row. New York.
McCullough, M. E. & D. B. Larson. (1999). Religion and depression: a review of the
literature. Twin Research. 2:126-136.
McKinney, C. R. Donnelly & K. Renk. (2008). Perceived parenting, Positive and
Negative perceptions of parents, and Late Adolescent Emotional adjustment. Child &
Adolescent Mental Health.13(2): 66-73.
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Lundberg, J. M. Kristenson & B. Starrin (2009).Status incongruence revisited:
Associations with shame and mental well-being. Sociology of Health & Illness. 31(4):
478-493.
Novas, C. (2006). The Political Economy of Hope: Patients organizations, Science
andBiovalue. Biosocieties. 1:289-305.
Landstedt, E., Asplund, K. & K. Gillander (2009). Understanding adolescent mental
health: the influence of social processes, doing gender and gendered power relations.
Sociology of Health & Illness. 31(7): 962-978.
Kuwabara, S. A. B. W. Van Voorhees, J. K. Gollan & G. C. Alexander (2007) A
Qualitaitve exploration of depression in emerging adulthood: disorder, development, and
social context. General Hospital Psychiatry. 29:317-324.
Email Policy
Please use your wlu account for any email correspondence with me. I may not read
email from other addresses and/or mail from other accounts may be lost in my
spam filter.
Expectations
I expect you to attend all classes and to be involved in discussion. It is essential that
you do the readings beforehand and also hand in your written assignments on the
date upon which they will be discussed.
Penalties for Late Assignments
Your written article reports must be submitted to me on the day of the presentation
of the particular article you have reviewed. This is to be done in class and prior to
the presentation. Your essay assignment must be handed in by 4pm on December
15th . Late assignments will be penalized at the rate of 3% per day including
weekends. Assignments that are more than one week late will not be accepted and
will thus receive a grade of 0. You are responsible for keeping a copy of any and all
assignments. You might email assignments to yourself to eliminate the possibilities
of their loss. Exceptions to the above due date policies will not be made on the basis
that you have other assignments due. You are responsible for organizing yourself for
all of your term work. I may sometimes grant an extension if I am convinced that
your tardiness is due to circumstances that are outside of your control. I may
require a medical note or proof from another legitimating source in this case.
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Fall/Winter 2015-2016 Additional Information
Student Awareness of the Accessible Learning Centre: Students with disabilities
or special needs are advised to contact Laurier’s Accessible Learning Centre for
information regarding its services and resources. Students are encouraged to review
the Calendar for information regarding all services available on campus. Guidelines
regarding the consideration of such students can be obtained by contacting the
Accessible Learning Centre, ext. 3086,
http://waterloo.mylaurier.ca/accessible/info/home.htm
Academic and Research Misconduct: Academic misconduct is an act by a student,
or by students working on a team project, which may result in a false evaluation of
the students(s), or which represents a deliberate attempt to unfairly gain an
academic advantage. Academic misconduct includes: please refer to web site:
http://www.wlu.ca/page.php?grp_id=2505&p=11452
Wilfrid Laurier University uses software that can check for plagiarism. Students may
be required to submit their written work in electronic form and have it checked for
plagiarism.
Examination Deferrals: The academic date section of the 2015/2016 calendar:
http://legacy.wlu.ca/calendars/index.php?cal=1&y=65 (Deferred Examination
Policy section) clearly states the examination policy and date period for each
semester. Students must note that they are required to reserve this time in their
personal calendars for the examinations. The examination period for this school
year is: FALL TERM: December 12-23; Winter Term: April 7 - 23. Students who
are considering registering to write MCAT, LSAT or GMAT or a similar examination,
should select a time for those examinations that occurs outside the University
examination period.
For additional information regarding special circumstances for examination
deferment, consult the Examination Policy web site and check the Deferred
Examination Policy section:
http://legacy.wlu.ca/calendars/section.php?cal=1&s=702&sp=2508&ss=2960&y=6
5#Deferred_Examination_Policy (Special Examinations section) of the 2015/2016
University on-line calendar.
The up to date, official Academic Calendar is posted on Wilfrid Laurier
University’s web site at http://legacy.wlu.ca Go to Academic Info/Academic
Calendars/Undergraduate Academic Calendar/2015/2016
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