Response Paper 2

In Preparation of Session 3
Denis Telofy Drescher
April 28, 2014
estion 1
In Of Two Minds, Tanya Luhrmann examines two models of psychiatric treat-
ment: a biomedical and a psychodynamic approach. Describe these two
models and their dierent ways of looking at the human person.
When psychiatrists diagnose an illness and make an implicit distinction between mind
and bodywhether naively or convenientlythen the treatment they recommend may ad-
dress the bodily manifestation of the illness, if detectable, or its roots in past and present
experiences of the patient. Hence, it will take the form of psychopharmacology or psy-
chotherapy (Luhrmann 22)ideally both, because for most psychiatric problems, a combi-
nation of psychopharmacology and psychotherapy provides the most eective treatment.
(203)
Luhrmann says that I believe both the biomedical and psychodynamic approaches to
psychiatric illness to be substantially correct and equally eective, although not always
for the same person. (Luhrmann 10) is is an important caveat, not only so the reader
would not be misguided into thinking that she advocates one to the detriment of the other,
but especially to make clear that both are mere approaches to and models of a part of re-
ality. is avoids another misconception, namely that both are true but apply to dierent
things. Anyone interested in soaping will see that Wow, this soap is moisturizing and
e saponication le excess glycerol are two potentially equally valid descriptions of
the same phenomenon merely on dierent levels of abstraction. e reader needs to un-
derstand that to follow her argument.
Having contrasted the descriptive methodologies and treatments that these models
know, she also addresses the highly interesting contrast in the connotations that our cul-
ture assigns to illnesses depending on which lens is used to frame them. I will comment
on that in the third section.
I was tempted to put true in scare quotes, not because of the specic statement, but because I am not
convinced of its applicability except in very limited cases. I did not, because it seemed distracting.
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estion 2
What were your problems with the text? What passages, ideas or concepts did
you nd unclear, unconvincing or otherwise problematic?
Luhrmanns voice, to me, carries greater authority than that of Menand, possibly due to
her extensive immersion in the specic eld; her expertise in anthropology; her dierenti-
ated, empathetic way of describing people; your endorsement of the book; the absence of,
to me, obvious lapses of naivet; and the well-edited prose. (is list is merely descriptive
and is not meant to imply that these factors assign legitimacy to this authority in equal
parts.) Hence, when Menand cites various criticisms of corporate pharmacology, I want
to either reconcile them with Luhrmann or nd the evidence to safely dismiss them.
However, Luhrmann does not comment on the corporate excesses of pharmacology
within the sections I have read, so that the contradictions are minimal. She does mention
the term cosmetic psychopharmacology (Luhrmann 287), which implies the nonpathologi-
cal degree of the aictions it aims to cure, but otherwise she focused on illnesses that are
so severe that to try to protect [these] chronic mentally ill by saying that they are not
ill, just dierent, is a misplaced liberalism of appalling insensitivity (12). at is what I
found wanting, a comment by one author on the views of the other.
Menands article taken by itself was slightly confusing for other reasons. Menand is
a renowned professor of English who has also won several prestigious awards for his
work as historian, but I had no previous knowledge of his views, particularly his views on
psychiatry. He reviewed two books that I have not read by two authors that I do not know.
Had I known either him or one of the books, I could have either taken his positionality as
a hint as to how I have to interpret the slant he gives to his reviews or tried to infer the his
positionality from the slant of his review of the book I know. In this situation, however, I
could do neither.
He describes Gary Greenberg as an unusually eloquent writer, which could be mere
praise, but is more likely a careful way of noting that he beguiles his readers with rhetoric
rather than fact. en, puing the words vast capitalist conspiracy into his mouth or n-
gers, he paints Greenbergs position as rather undierentiated, before Menands thinly
veiled animadversion culminates in a suggestion of what might be Greenbergs selsh mo-
tive behind the book: In fact, Greenberg seems to believe that contemporary psychiatry
in most of its forms except existential-humanistic talk therapy, which is an actual school
of psychotherapy, and which appears to be what he practices, is mainly about geing
people to accept current arrangements.
I have also skimmed a few positive reviews online, but without more knowledge of the
topic and the two authors, this conict oats unanchored to my own positionality.
Menands position toward Irving Kirsch seems more sympathetic.
Finally, the article does lile to illuminate the subtitle Can psychiatry be a science?
which is further confused by all the disagreement over what makes a theory scientic,
Even to me, whose background may be called anticapitalist. It is more an eect of connotation than
denotation.
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and rather contends itself with exemplifying the image caption e psychiatric literature
is so confusing that even the dissidents disagree.
Roths review was interesting mostly because I learned what specic expectations Roth
had onto the literature he read, and thus what expectations other highly perceptive, intel-
lectual readers might have as well. Otherwise I found it unconcerning. e rather scathing
reviews were of specic novels for reasons specic to those novels, and his more gen-
eral pointsroughly, that novelists contend themselves with following science rather than
foreshadowing it and with considering the specic without making (legitimate) claims to
the generalseem all right to me. at this causes a diminishing of the novels purview
appears extrapolated froma comparatively tiny sample, considering the hundreds of thou-
sands of novels that are published every year.
estion 3
What did you nd interesting about the text? What aspects of the text would
you like to know more about?
Luhrmann last chapter was intriguing because it touched on the issue of moral respon-
sibility. However, I had hoped to read her thoughts on the strangeness of our retributive
justice system.
Socially, a persons ungainly behavior is oen more easily excused if the its cause is
simple enough that scientists have been able to pinpoint its form and location within the
body. Furthermore, people whose illness has a name oen have a chance to a process
closer to a one-sided version of restorative justice, while the rest is subjected to various
forms of punitive action as if they were incapable of understanding human speech and
culture and have to be domesticated with the whip.
I feel like a more comprehensive understanding of the manifestations of the same ill-
ness on both layers of abstraction, that of the body and that of the self, might help cause
a cultural shi closer toward restorative justice. It would have been interesting to read
Luhrmanns opinion on that.
Works Cited
Luhrmann, T.M. Of Two Minds: An Anthropologist Looks at American Psychiatry. Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011. Print. Vintage.
Menand, Louis. Head Case: Can Psychiatry be a Science? (2010). Web.
Roth, Marco. e Rise of the Neuronovel. (2009). Web.
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