Schizophrenia, Culture, And Subjectivity, By Janis Hunter...

The text â€Å"Schizophrenia, Culture, and Subjectivity,† edited by Janis Hunter Jenkins and Robert John Barrett is a collection of cross-cultural studies initiated by the World Health Organization with an initiative to explore and analyze the varying dilemmas concerning mental health. The text explores mental illnesses and clinical problems surrounding them, especially schizophrenia. It aims to make note of how schizophrenia treatment varies as influenced by culture. It aids mental health professionals when it comes to cultural and subjective experiences concerning schizophrenia. The text mainly focuses on mental health studies, especially concerning schizophrenia, with contributions from anthropologists, as well as psychiatrists,†¦show more content†¦In this literary review, the chapters will be grouped according to their existing grouping as presented by the text, as it makes for the most logical way of grouping related essays together. In the first part, chapter 1 introduces Janis Jenkins’(2004) argument that schizophrenia allows for an understanding of cultural views of self, emotions, and social engagements. Schizophrenic experiences are shown to be both extraordinary and very ordinary in terms of how individuals experience them. However it is viewed as very important to keep the two apart since focusing on similarities carries the risk of setting aside the suffering and resilience experienced by those with the illness. On the other hand, there exists a dilemma, since focusing on differences is harmful, as it is a risk that could devalue people with schizophrenia. Jenkins does an exceptional job of highlighting the extraordinary and ordinary in schizophrenia and contributes equal attention to the prevention of playing down insights of schizophrenics and negative views that paint them as emotionally empty humans. Moving from the first chapter, Chapter 2, by Kim Hopper (2004) concludes that in the developing world, the course of schiz ophrenia is more benign both in short and long-term. After analyzing numerous World Health Organization (WHO) contributions, Hopper ascertains that this is true, no matter the confounding variables, which are things like: gender, age, loss to