Sonríe: las pastillitas de la felicidad y la medicalización | Alberto Fernández Liria

Course INSIDE YOU Social Discontent, (De)politicization, and Critical Psychologies http://aula.fundaciondeloscomunes.net... SESSION 2. Smile: The Little Pills of Happiness and the Expansion of Medicalization Introduction: Alberto Fernández Liria (Mental Health Coordinator for Area 3 of Madrid and Head of Psychiatry at the Príncipe de Asturias Hospital, Alcalá de Henares) Diagnosis: depression, anxiety, dysthymia, attention deficit disorder, panic attacks. Treatment: antidepressants, anxiolytics, tranquilizers, stimulants, hypnotics. In recent decades, the sequence "discontent - diagnosis - medicalization" has become part of a veritable chain in a factory for managing distress. A couple of headlines: "In the United States, the diagnosis of bipolar disorder has increased by 4000% in the last twenty years"; "The use of antidepressants has increased from 100 people per million in 1980 to 100,000 per million in this decade." Given this situation, in this session we will attempt to answer questions such as: How much has the medicalization of mental health increased in recent years? What are the causes that might explain the expansion of psychotropic drug use in recent decades? From which political and healthcare institutions was and is a model promoted in which medicalization plays a fundamental role in treatment implemented? How does mainstream psychiatry interpret the appearance of symptoms and their "correct" treatment? Are there other practices within healthcare institutions that address distress by rejecting medicalization as the sole solution? How can people be given more autonomy to decide on their own treatment and care?