Globalization has brought American products around the world. And now, as Ethan Watters reports in “The Americanization of Mental Illness” (New York Times Magazine), American mental illness is spreading around the globe. In the past, mental illness manifested itself variously among different cultures and these cultures shaped different narratives of how to respond to the illness. Now that American scientific data informs interpretations of mental illness from Toledo to Tokyo, old cultural stories have been pushed aside in favor of a more scientific explanation (and a more American experience) of mental illness.
It’s not necessarily a good thing.
Science provides a biological explanation for mental illness, and it locates the illness within the individual. As a result, according to Watters, “Even as we have congratulated ourselves for becoming more ‘benevolent and supportive’ of the mentally ill, we have steadily backed away from the sufferers themselves.”
Jesus didn’t back away from sufferers. For example, in Luke 8, Jesus encounters a man possessed by demons. Jesus not only engages this man directly, but asks his name, drives out the demons, and restores him to his community: ”So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him” (see Luke 8:26-39 for whole context). Rather than allowing scientific data to distance us from one another, we must attend to Jesus’ model, which necessitates personal engagement with the one who suffers.
