"Therapism" and Mental Health in Politics

Although I agree these topics (iraq war, GW,etc. is not related to
health fraud in any primary sense).However the worm can has now been
completely opened, dumped in the pot and stirred. I just had to ask
something, I have been curious about for sometime. I have several
good friends in the mental health profession that I have queried on
this topic and I'm wondering if there are any on this list that have
anything to add.

It seems to me that this is one of the most polarizing US
administrations in my lifetime. So much that I often hear people say
that the sight of GW or his minions on TV literally "makes them
sick", or so angry that it is affecting their moods and quality of
life overall. (i guess this may be also true of folks on the "great
liberal media conspiracy" side but I don't have many friends of that
persuasion) I asked my friends with a long history of patient
interactions whether they have patients/clients reporting now (more
so than in the past) that the current political situations are
affecting their emotional health and well being. They report that in
a very general way that among some individuals does seem to be a
greater sense of powerlessness and despair, as well as anger, and a
kind of obsession with political/war news to the extent that it
interferes with their day to day lives. To what this is attributed to
I don't know- I guess you could go down the usual list of suspects-
media, etc. without any provable conclusion.

So the question is-, is this real?, is this new? is this in any way
related to the debate about the relationship of physical and mental
health? Can politics make you sick? Seriously? --J E

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I'm not experienced in the mental health profession, but I can pass along a point of view, not necessarily my own.

Is there now an unprecedented polarization of politics today? I've read history books that can suggest otherwise. The political climate during McClellen's run for presidency against Abe Lincoln rings familiar (to some extent) to today. Is our mental health being challenged to an unprecedented extreme today? Perhaps, but some argue it could be merely a our evolved definition of what is mental illness.

Passion about political feelings make people sick the same way people can become ill when confronted with any antagonism against their beliefs. Be it about medical treatment, a sports figure, a moral or religious ideal, a business, or just about anything. For example, most will agree the whole world was a better place before the Lakers started missing the playoffs. Taking your analogy of friends becoming sick just at the sight of GW, I live in a community where the case was the same at the sight of Clinton back when he was prez. Polarization by the use of emotion is a sales tactic as much in politics as in medical quackery. Polarization simplifies our world into black and white, and our emotions help us ignore a critical thought process. A fallacy of logic is often successfully used to this end.

In the sense that greater efforts are being made by both political parties to thus "control the mob" this election that in recent past ones, an argument can be made that our collective mental health is under greater strain. The argument I've heard made; however, is that our current mental health culture of "therapism", wrongly convinces us to consider any dissonant feeling we have as a mental illness worthy of treatment. So, rather than considering that everyone is suffering a mental illness due to our political climate. Perhaps consider that human behavior is ages old, and bandwagoning is a part of it.

n--