Meds

Thu, Apr 20, 2006

A not surprising article in the Post today reviews an article by Lisa Cosgrove coming out in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics that demonstrates the close ties that experts on mood disorders, including all of those who have written the relevant entries in the DSM-IV, have to the pharmaceutical industry.

I’m curious about how often we’ve seen in recent American television the effects of the diagnosed refusing their meds. There was the episode of Lost I briefly mentioned a while ago, the episode of Buffy it seemed indebted to, the fourth season of 24, and perhaps intermittent parts of The Sopranos. In almost every case, it was a liberatory gesture with attendantly dire consequences (though the reality-distortion metacommentary of the first two complicate this considerably).

I don’t remember if it’s “Out on Bail” or one of the other ones, but you may remember how it ends with something like “if I opened up your head and ran a hot soldering iron around in your brain, I might turn you into someone like that.” Mutatis mutandis.