I was interested to read what Watters suggested about American cultural intrusion in psychological diagnosis around the world. I was disappointed that his first example, anorexia in Hong Kong, was so poorly supported. First of all, Watters posits that using the DSM to universally diagnose diseases around the world would be dangerous to the other cultures that are not "western". On the surface, this idea has merit. Are we Americans really influencing other cultures to have symptomology like us? However, when describing the first cases of anorexia, it did not sound like anorexia at all. It was indeed a psychologically induced desire to avoid food, but the causes and presentation were so different from anorexia, I would have been tempted to say it was a brand new disease. Although the patient's problem was food related, there was no other similarity with anorexia. Most frustrating was that Watters did nothing to support the decision to diagnose these patients with anorexia and simply insisted that because it was happening in a different culture, then of course it would present differently.
The idea that western knowledge is influencing and trying to fit it's square peg into a round hole of global mental illness is a valid one that needs to be considered with care. If we approach all cultures with a superior and domineering attitude, we will be unable to help when we most want to. We will alienate the very people we seek to help. But Watters approaches this topic with the delicacy of a bull in a china shop labeling all western thought as unfit to help anywhere except in western countries. In fact, I would even say that he doesn't think that any good can come from mental health practitioners who are too self-serving and egocentric to see past their own ethos to actually heal.
I would approach this book with caution. Whatever valid arguments Watters might have had are smeared with so much derision and disgust that his message is no longer one of intelligence or a call for caution; it is propaganda.
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