Some years ago I worked with another pharmacist, whose husband was the son of a Russian dissident. The dissident’s name was Marina Voikhanskaya. She had left Soviet Russia after placing herself in danger by refusing to diagnose and treat political dissidents as mentally ill. After abuse from the KGB she managed to escape, highlight the human rights abuses, and settled down to a life in England – after a long hard struggle to be re-united with her son.
Medicalising political views is not confined to the Soviet era. In 2007, Daniel G. Amen suggested that judgments can be made about individuals from brain scans. After a laughable attempt to recruit Bill Clinton as an example of a brain damaged US president, he explained the importance of brain scanning:
A national leader with brain problems can potentially cost millions of people their lives. Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein give us recent historical examples. Both of Milosevic’s parents committed suicide, he had serious bouts of depression and reportedly drank heavily — all signs that point to brain problems. He was found to be unreasonable and unreliable in negotiations and heartless as a political leader. Hussein was described as paranoid and without empathy, also symptoms pointing to poor brain function. His mother suffered severe bouts of depression and attempted suicide while pregnant with him, which is known to affect a baby’s developing brain. He was physically and emotionally abused by his stepfather. All of these stresses must have been involved in shaping his paranoid brain into a mind that could torture dissenters, murder relatives and launch chemical attacks that killed thousands.
Daniel Engber exposed the oddball activities of Amen. Amen runs a private brain scanning business. In addition he sells cures after he has “diagnosed” your brain problems from the scans:
In addition to the talking cure and psychoactive drugs, your treatment might include hypnosis, prayer, meditation, biofeedback, dietary supplements, hyperbaric oxygen treatment, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and eye-movement desensitization.
Can’t afford a scan? You can still benefit from his wisdom at a lower price point online. His Web store offers branded brain-boosting pills (containing raw neurotransmitters and fish oil, among other things), audio CDs designed to mesmerize you into losing weight or quitting smoking, and books on how to improve your sex life and heal “painful deep soul memories.”
In 2008, David Owen “invented”, a new disease that affects political leaders. Although Owen has written illuminatingly about the health problems of leaders, his new disease wasn’t about real illness.
He saw the pressures they were under and began to consider how illness affects the decision-making powers of leaders. And he noticed that some leaders who weren’t actually ill in the conventional sense became so intoxicated with power that it warped their judgment.
There were warning signs: unshakeable self-confidence, contempt for advice and inattention to detail. Gradually, they would lose their grip on reality.
He called this Hubris Syndrome. His book of that title, published last year, was really just one chapter of a six-year study of illness in heads of government, rushed out to coincide with Tony Blair’s departure from No 10. In it, he argued that the mental health of Blair and President George Bush was undermined by Hubris Syndrome. They’d stopped listening and were behaving recklessly, taking their instructions direct from the Almighty. Presumably now Obama has been elected and referred to God several times in the lead up to the election and since, he also is now a sufferer of Hubris Syndrome. I suspect not though. I expect Hubris Syndrome is more dependent on the observer, than the observed. Those that do not agree with you politically are mentally ill. It’s a very convenient conceit, you can understand why the Soviets made use of it.
More recently quacks have been invited to speculate about the health of Gordon Brown.
But the most recent example of medicalising politics came from Oliver James on the PM programme. Not content to stick to the mental deficiencies of mere leaders, James variously suggested that 50 to 80% of the population are mentally unstable. This was in the context of a discussion about managing the expectations of people who expect great things from Obama. He also suggested that many of these voters had been abused by their parents, had become mentally unstable because of the sick society they were living in, and therefore looked towards leaders to help them with their mental problems. Obviously James is in that small minority of right-thinking people; so we need not worry about his mental health.
Anyway, you can judge for yourself by listening to the exchange between James and Phil Collins (not the singer). After James’ rant, Collins has the perfect put-down. It should be on Pick of the Week.
One Comment
Oliver James, what a guy.
Speaking as someone who has bipolar themselves it might be worth reminding people like James that a diagnosis of mental illness does not equate to a constant state of inability to function in the real world. A manic state can leave one susceptible to many things but a manic state is thought to be the rarest state of manic depression.
Phil Collins retort was spot on and very funny.
I’ve noticed a tendency to medicalise everything lately. Political figures are sadly not exempt. In fact, the only people who do seem exempt are journalists and their invited guests!