The dichotomy between mind and body and its influence on the increasing use of psychiatric drugs today

Abstract

The present work addresses the increasingly accentuated use of psychotropic drugs for the treatment of mental disorders. We understand this phenomenon as part of a more comprehensive one called medicalization, which can be described as the increasing influence of medical jurisdiction on human life and its sufferings. These, which were once part of the very act of living, have been captured by explanations that consider them as a consequence of a disorder located in the body or in specific organs, such as the brain, in the case of mental disorders. In our understanding, the cerebralism to which we refer, disseminated by neuroscientific discourse, can be understood both by analyzing the historical origins of the modern scientific paradigm that sustains medicine as we know it today, as well as by analyzing the capitalist mode of production and his work ethic. We followed, then, the Nietzschean criticisms, with regard to philosophy and modern science as heirs of the Socratic-Platonic philosophical tradition and Christianity. Of this heritage, what matters most to us is the contempt for what is manifested in the body, say affections, desires and multiplicity, valuing the characteristics related to the soul, such as control, reason and unity.