Psychotropic Drugs and Popular Culture: Essays on Medicine, Mental Health and the Media / Edition 1

by Lawrence C. Rubin

Overview

Psychotropic drugs--those intended to change moods, numb anxiety, calm children--are pervasive in American culture. References are everywhere: not just in print and electronic advertisements but in television show dialogue, movies, song lyrics, and on advertising paraphernalia like notepads, wall clocks, mouse pads, coffee mugs, pens and pencils. The authors in this compilation of essays on psychotropic drugs and mass culture contend that society has been transformed into an asylum without walls--a "psychotropia." With each new definition of a mental ailment, a new cure is offered, increasing the number of inmates in this borderless asylum and blurring the lines between mental health and mental illness.

Eight essays probe this issue, with an introduction and conclusion by the editor. The introduction frames the topic in the dehumanized asylums brought to light in 1961 by sociologist Erving Goffman, and in author Marshall McLuhan's warning not to be seduced by the media. Essay topics cover: how psychotropia came to be; drug portrayal in Hollywood; advertising in cyberspace and the postmodern condition; the advertising madness that promotes better living through chemistry; food as medicine; the music culture of psychotropia; children and psychotropic drugs; and stereotypes and manipulation in mass marketing.

Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786425136
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	05/16/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	227
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.46(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lawrence C. Rubin is a professor of counselor education at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida, and a practicing psychologist. He lives in Pompano Beach.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     
Introduction     

1 The Asylum: Its Construction and Deconstruction     
2 Hollywood Rx     
3 Cheerful Robots in Cyberspace: Prozac, Postmodernism, and Politics     
4 Advertising Madness     
5 Psychotropics, It’s What’s for Dinner! Technologies of Sex, Gender, Body, and the Mind in the Medicalization of Food     
6 Rappers, Ravers, and Rock Stars: The Deviantizing Hand of Music in Psychotropia     
7 From Playground to Pharmacy: Medicating Childhood     
8 False Advertising: Gender Stereotypes, Corporate Manipulation, and Consumer Resistance     

Conclusion: Huxley’s Prophecy     
About the Contributors     
Index     

Editorial Reviews

of value...unique...provides a sound sociological analysis of licit drug use in American society”—Sociology of Health & Illness; “well-written, engaging and critically sound”—Journal of Popular Culture; “an extraordinarily interesting and stimulating collection of articles...thoroughly enjoyed...thought provoking...fascinating”—Metapsychology.

From the Publisher

"an extraordinarily interesting and stimulating collection of articles...thoroughly enjoyed...thought provoking...fascinating"

Metapsychology

well-written, engaging and critically sound

Journal of Popular Culture

of value...unique...provides a sound sociological analysis of licit drug use in American society

Sociology of Health & Illness