Читать книгу Finding Jesus in the Storm - John Swinton - Страница 15

I deliberately use the phrase “living under the description of manic depression (or bipolar disorder)” to refer to people who have received this medical diagnosis. The phrase is meant to reflect the social fact that they have been given a diagnosis. At the same time, it calls attention to another social fact: the diagnosis is only one description of a person among many.

—Emily Martin1

THE FIELD OF MENTAL HEALTH IS HIGHLY CONTESTED. PEOPLE HAVE DESCRIBED, categorized, and responded to unconventional mental health experiences in a multitude of ways and have elicited a wide range of responses. At any given historical or cultural moment, particular descriptions of the experience and explanations for its occurrence—that it is caused by demons, the subconscious, chemical imbalances, genetics, neurology—become elevated to the status of the “standard account.” This account is assumed to provide the interpretative framework used by a majority of people to explain unconventional thoughts, experiences, and actions. Each generation thinks that its descriptions should be the “standard accounts,” and each generation assumes that its descriptions are more accurate than previous descriptions. The current emphasis within Western cultures on describing mental health challenges in biological terms is relatively new but nonetheless powerful. Genes, neurology, and chemical imbalances all can easily serve as conversation-closing explanations for mental health challenges. Yet, while biology is an important factor, it is not the only one. Running alongside this account are other important ways of describing such challenges, even if people do not necessarily give them the same social or scientific weight as the standard account. People still believe in demons, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and many other descriptions. This book gives voice to some of these other forms of describing and understanding what is going on in people’s lives.

But first, we must ask: What does it mean to describe something?