The book darkness visible is a memoir written by William Styron and was published in the year 1990. In this book Styron reflects on his self-diagnosis of a mental illness. He feels that he has developed all the signs of depression. He is sure of it because he is sure of it because his diurnal lows are far much worse than what the normal person experiences. Although, Styron had prided himself an autodidact he intentionally ignored any knowledge on mental illness as he thought it boarded to heavy on psychic implications. However, at his present state he regrets not having this knowledge, as he comes to the realization that truly there is no treatment for the disease. He asserts that doctors barely know anything about depression apart from the symptoms. Any book that claims to have a concoction of methods to use for treatment is fraudulent and the only truth is that depression is a great mystery.
According to the lecture the whole field of psychiatry is subjective and thus the DSM (Diagnostic and statistical manual of American psychiatric Association) has been changed throughout history as culture has changed and medicine evolved. Therefore, it is easy deduct that mental illness has been shaped by the society, they create their own norms and anyone who disrupts it faces stigmatization and declared mentally ill. The case is evident due to the lack of proper hospitals to cure the supposed illnesses. On the contrary the asylums were used to torture vulnerable individuals and seclude them from the rest of the society. There is also a clear injustice in the decisiveness of who is primarily mentally ill. If an affluent person of high social status is reported to have conversations with himself it is very unlikely that they would be sent to an asylum for schizophrenia. However, the poor are the most vulnerable in the society, as they are easily secluded with an aim to hide them from the “sane people”
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The story of William Styron directly relates to the lecture as it questions the existence of mental illness. The doctors who are meant to have an objective form of treatment rely on crude methods to treat what they do not understand. The only reason for this paradox would be the non-existence of the disease. The medical paradigm shift on the case of mental illness is an eye opener to how naïve medicine had approached the case of mental illness. As Styron is astonished at doctor’s lack of knowledge on treatment for depression history shows us that we had guidelines on who was allowed to be schizophrenic, affluence and social status.
