Urgent and persuasive, Sedated systematically examines why this individualistic view of ‘mental illness’ has been promoted by successive governments and big business – and why it is so misplaced and dangerous. The intimate relationship between mental health and social conditions has largely been obscured, with societal causes interpreted within a bio-medical framework and shrouded with scientific terminology. Diagnoses frequently begin and end with the individual, identifying bioessentialist causes at the expense of examining social factors. However, the social, political, and economic organization of society must be recognized as a significant contributor to people’s mental health, with certain social structures being more advantageous to the emergence of mental well-being than others. As the basis on which society’s superstructural formation is erected, capitalism is a major determinant of poor mental health. As the Marxist professor of social work and social policy Iain Ferguson has argued, "it is the economic and political system under which we live—capitalism—which is responsible for the enormously high levels of mental health problems which we see in the world today." The alleviation of mental distress is only possible “in a society without exploitation and oppression." Since the 1980s, our country has changed dramatically and now 80% of us work in the service sector. We work longer hours, change jobs more frequently and are more likely to live in large cities. In 2018 55% of Brits felt under excessive pressure, exhausted or miserable at work. We are forced to strive to meet targets at work which are placing workers under even more pressure. Even our school children are placed under pressure to pass exams, bolstering their school’s position in the league tables. Is it any wonder that one in six school children now have a diagnosable psychiatric condition?

Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis

Compartiendo gran parte de sus tesis, creo que a veces peca de hablar desde un plano demasiado teórico y poco material. Es cierto que inevitablemente la superestructura determina nuestros valores, cómo nos sentimos y nuestras expectativas, pero frente a la gran crisis de salud mental que estamos viviendo es necesario poner en marcha medidas que ayuden a prevenir, intervenir y paliar la situación. Trascender el modelo biomédico y apostar por recursos psicosociales desde los servicios públicos (sanidad, educación, servicios sociales...). Es importante hacer análisis macro, pero también poner en marcha medidas tangentes y urgentes. Many believed that we were being granted the freedom to grow personal wealth, giving us all the same opportunities. We adhered to the idea that this neoliberal freedom was vastly preferable to the very limited freedom of Soviet Russia. And every government since the 1980s has continued with this system, even if some did tweak it around the edges. About ‘A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs: The Truth About How They Work And How To Come Off Them.’We are effectively encouraged to use material comforts to treat our distress. Buying something new, something better, will make you feel good. Eating, drinking, smoking, holidays or new clothes become crutches, but profitable for capitalism. At the same time, governments and authorities lecture people about taking personal responsibility for our health and consumer choices. This is a social catch-22, since we have not had governments with any interest in alleviating our distress. We are simply being seen as a source of profits when in distress. A social cure is needed While Marx’s argument targeted religion during industrial capitalism, its analytical thrust over the 20th century would influence social scientists across the political spectrum. They would use his ideas to explain how social institutions (e.g. religion, education, health care) all adapted to the aims of the wider economy, mostly to ensure their own survival and success. In what follows, I want to explore how this enduring idea can help explain the failure of our mental health sector to improve its outcomes since the 1980s. People with much more wealth and a higher status tend to be much less kinder in their attitude to others than people who have a low status position. The idea behind this is that people who are selfish or better paid tend to be more selfish in their approaches and behaviours to others. These ideas gave rise to a theory of materialism in that people who were more wealthy or a higher status tended to cheat more and find ways obtain things that people of low status weren't so bothered about. But people of high status and more wealth, also gave rise to a certain level of unhappiness. One example of this is that people with low status could be given the idea that they were a high status person and they then showed changes in their behaviour to seek more in the way of material goods and wealth. The main argument is that people who are wealthy tend to be more selfish but maybe that's part of why they have become wealthy. Many of these people who are obsessed by materialistic wealth goods often get something but as soon as the item has been bought they lose interest and seek something else. I generally believe that the love of money and the desire to have more and more of it is actually another kind of addiction in a similar way that someone might be addicted to heroin or gambling. Tras una investigación concienciduda sobre el estado de la salud mental en Reino Unido, Davies desmenuza con datos y evidencias de dónde viene la actual crisis de salud mental y cómo se está abordando desde los diferentes gobiernos.

Sedated by James Davies eBook | Perlego [PDF] Sedated by James Davies eBook | Perlego

Davies has used this book to describe the UK’s ‘marketised vision of mental health that has stripped our suffering of its deeper meaning and purpose’ (p.2). His arguments are evidenced by discussions of various research papers, by countless interviews he conducted and by his own attendance at events such as the Occupy movement in New York. In the UK 44 million people are taking anti-psychotic medicines and more people are starting antipsychotic medicines than stopping and this is leading to a wide range of concerns including frontal lobe shrinkage and greater increases in variety and depression. Robert Whittaker studies also showed that even in conditions like schizophrenia that people on medicines were more likely to have worse outcomes than those stopping early or on medicines and even with those who are not on any form of treatment.Muchas personas toman antidepresivos por la simple razón de que hay poquísimas alternativas disponibles. Nuestros servicios públicos carecen de alternativas psicosociales, como la terapia, por lo que los fármacos se convierten en la intervención más rápida y barata (aunque menos eficaz) en salud mental". After talking about work, the book then goes on to discuss how the rise of these approaches are being used in educational establishments. The author begins with the rise of special educational needs. The number of people with special educational needs has doubled in 10 years since 2010. Now that number now accounts for almost 20% of all schoolchildren in education. This could be their speech, language, cognition, learning, or behavioural issues. However, the biggest increase in this number is those with a mental health problem be at anxiety, depression, ADHD and behavioural problems.

Crucial conversations: with Joanna Moncrieff and James Davies Crucial conversations: with Joanna Moncrieff and James Davies

This is the first book I've read that examines mental health in a sociopolitical context, and it was a breath of fresh air. Last year, I had a video appointment with my new primary care doctor because I was dealing with burnout and depression from severe job stress. Five minutes into the call, the doctor told me she would write me a prescription for antidepressants. I'd never met this doctor before, she didn't know anything about my life or the circumstances that led me to feel depressed and burned out—yet she was happy to give me a prescription for psychiatric drugs within minutes. Dr Davies said, “by sedating people to the causes and solutions for their socially rooted distress – both literally and ideologically – our mental health sector has stilled the impulse for social reform, which has distracted people from the real origins of their despair and has favoured results that are primarily economic while presiding over the worst outcomes in our health care system”. Pernah nggak, kepikiran kalau di balik kesehatan mental penyebabnya tidak lain & tidak bukan adalah kapitalisma? 👀 A wonderful, moving and truly life-changing book. Sedated is an urgent intervention for post-pandemic society, written with expertise and clarity. Warning: it will cause irritation to powerful interests who fear us all becoming better informed about the root causes of so much human suffering. ― Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, former Director of Liberty

Sedated

The book looks at how people who have aspirations and dreams and what they might buy can influence their personality, for example an interesting experiment was carried out in people who drove high status, expensive cars and low status cars and the people who drove shiny, expensive, high costing cars were more likely to not stop for a pedestrian that was trying to cross the road and show less consideration for others. In my own personal experience I feel that this is often true and that people in low status cars are less likely to cut up in front of people or stop when you are trying to cross a road as opposed to people who might have a nice shiny Mercedes-Benz, BMW or Audi.

Dr James Davies publishes new book “Sedated: How Modern

Within the book, Dr Davies argues the widespread medicalisation of mental distress has fundamentally mischaracterised the problem. Many who are diagnosed and prescribed psychiatric medication are not suffering from biologically identifiable problems. Instead, they are experiencing the understandable and, of course, painful human consequences of life’s difficulties – family breakdowns, problems at work, unhappiness in relationships, low self-esteem and etc. For these individuals, there has become an imbalance in the provision, with so many offered medical interventions versus talking therapies and social psychological provision, which may better facilitate meaningful change and recovery. In Sedated, James Davies makes a powerful case that the marketisation of mental health ignores the social causes of distress, harming us while serving capitalism, finds Lucette Davies James Davies, Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crisis (Atlantic Books 2022), 400pp. Sometimes mental health services focus too much on what is wrong with someone as opposed to what happened to someone. So for example if you have an increased workload and you're not sleeping and therefore this is bringing you down and you feel a lot of stress and pressure it is often the remit of professionals to say that that person is suffering from depression rather than from an increased workload that could be managed and sorted rather than trying to manage the label of depression. Many well-being courses that are supplied by companies such as the NHS have no evidence to show that they work in regards to reducing stress and depression. If you have an increased workload for example, you find your job boring and you might have some personal problems it is totally natural to feel some signs of depression or sadness in your life but perhaps managing what it is it's bothering you might be more important than just going on the well-being course where are you practising mindfulness techniques. As already pointed out, no research shows that these kinds of courses actually support and help people and make any changes to their well-being and mental health status.La tesis principal de Davies es que el neoliberalismo impulsado por Tatcher en la década de los 80 caló cambiando la cultura y la mentalidad de la población, inculcando ciertos valores que le son funcionales al sistema capitalista, tales como el materialismo o el individualismo, despolitizando y patologizando los problemas de salud mental. Así, el autor apuesta por un origen sociogénico a la actual ola de salud mental, y reivindica la necesidad de poner el foco en las causas estructurales (el sistema) y no sólo coyunturales (la pandemia, la guerra).