4 Short-Answer Questions, Prompt see next article.都是私貨

[1] What does Emily Martin mean when she says that American culture has an “affinity” with mania?

According to Emily Martin, she states that modern American culture has a strong affinity with manic behavior. She found that people in the United States are fascinated by manic behaviors because these behaviors provide evidence of high productivity.

What Emily means is that American people favor the spirit of manic behaviors because it is associated with high energy, and it gives high efficiency for people to work harder and perform better. For example, some advertisements, TV shows, and academic tomes in the US utilize mania's quality to promote better outcomes. In addition, American people believe that manic behaviors can provide high energy that increases the ability and creativity of business leaders so that the high-energy mood can be spread among the followers and further leads to the business successes.

However, instead of saying "American culture has an affinity with mania," Emily's statement can be better explained as "American culture has an affinity with high energy." American people fascinate high energy that gives better productivity, but manic behavior is not as simple as narrowing giving high energy. On the one hand, people are more likely to succeed with the help of manic energy; but on the other hand, manic behaviors can be fatal if they produce extreme abnormalities.

Emily Martin argues that mania is not something fun, it may attract people, but it also causes terrible consequences. American culture does not favor the fatal part of mania but favors the high energy associated with?mania.

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[2] The DSM-5 uses the terms “cultural idioms of distress,” and “cultural explanations of distress.” Explain what these mean.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fifth Version, the term "cultural idioms of distress" refers to a way for a culturally-experienced person to express distress. Such distress may not involve specific symptoms or syndromes, but it comes from a collection of the person's experiences through cultural and social concerns. This collection of experiences is always shared among a particular cultural group. The term "cultural idioms of distress" refers to a culturally shaped way for people to express their distress. The word "Idioms" here refers to the way of personal emotional expression, presenting emotions (distress) to the world. For example, people with meditation cultures may sit in a place for a long time without doing anything when feeling distressed. Such meditation is a type of cultural expression of distress.

"Cultural Explanations of Distress" refers to an explanatory model to indicate the meaning or etiology of the distress that is recognized by the particular culture. This term indicates the culturally shaped way for people to explain the causes of distress based on their particular culture. This is also known as "Perceived Causes."

For example, in some South Asian countries, some biological men may suffer from Dhat syndrome. They believe that they are passing semen in their urine, causing them distress and even unable to ejaculate. This is a type of "cultural explanation of distress:" in their culture, they believe that semen, the "vital fluid," is lost. This culturally shaped explanation makes them distress even there is no identifiable physiological dysfunction.

[3] Why is Gananath Obeyesekere skeptical about the universal application of the diagnostic category of depression?

According to Gananath Obeyesekere, Western psychiatrists have established a universal diagnostic standard of depression as presenting certain numbers of symptoms. Gananath is skeptical about this standard mainly because of cultural differences.

Gananath argues that mental illness is always associated with social-psychological conditions, resulting from experiences in different social and cultural backgrounds. The understanding of symptoms in the diagnostic standard is intrinsic to personal experiences shaped by particular social and cultural backgrounds. Different symptoms are considered differently in various social and cultural contexts. For example, Gananath argues that depression in the West is a set of sorrowful events in free-floating life, whereas Ashanti women would accept involutional psychotic reactions as a natural result of life's vicissitudes. That said, symptoms considered in the universal standard of depression may not be considered as illness or disease in other cultures; instead, these symptoms may be thought of as "religion," for example.

Gananath also argues that the diagnostic standard of depression considers symptoms as isolated from the cultural context. The universal standard cannot fit into different cultural backgrounds. For example, Gananath argues that utilizing the terms described in ordinary English can be problematic because other cultures may not have a corresponding pre-existing definition. That said, defining terms in the native language and looking for an English equivalent may work better in the particular cultural context. Using the universal standard of depression that comes from ordinary English words can be misleading in other cultures.

Besides, Gananath is skeptical about the quantitative measurement in the universal standard. In different cultures, some symptoms can be more qualitatively significant, while other symptoms may be "normal." Gananath argues that people shouldn't look for a universal value-free standard because people's values, which are never free of cultural variances, must be included as part of the diagnostic category.

[4] Why is Philippe Bourgois critical of prescription-methadone treatment for opiate addiction?

According to Philippe Bourgois, though methadone treatment effectively treats opiate addiction, it causes?“methadone addiction”, which further causes many issues.

Methadone is effective at blocking opiate-driven euphoria because methadone is more physically addictive than heroin or morphine. Methadone has long-lasting effects so that it can be hard, harder than heroin, to be withdrawal. That said, methadone treatment makes a long commitment to methadone maintenance inside the body, and the majority of people have to stay on methadone for a long time, even forever.

Philippe argues that methadone treatment is merely changing the addiction subject from heroin to methadone. Methadone treatment requires people to take the dose and give urine samples under supervision. Such supervision is not making life better.?Furthermore, the public not only has the stigma on heroin addiction; it will treat methadone addiction as an addict. For example, though employers may not discriminate against methadone-treated people by law, they would not?put “methadone-addicted”?people in an important position.

Besides, methadone is not a safe treatment. Methadone is a physically addictive opiate that people may overdose on it, that is why supervision is required, though incontinent.?Methadone also has side effects that may lead to weight gain or sexual impotence. That said, using methadone treatment for opiate addiction is merely changing the ears of the substance addiction. Methadone is solving one addiction but causing the other addiction, which is also uneasy to handle.

Philippe mentions that heroin transforms from a drug to be medicalized in Swiss through legalization, making the possible reduction in?diseases associated with addicted drug usage?(e.g. HIV). Philippe argues that we should de-exoticize the way we think about drugs to treat opiate addiction instead of making one addiction (of methadone) to treat the other addiction.

注：該問題的回答并不全面：should “expand?on his critique of the ways in which methadone is used to discipline patients, or the ways in which the two drugs are moralized.”