Last updated on November 26, 2023
Podcast Episode 0054; Season 04, Episode 18; February 2, 2021
Roy Richard Grinker is a Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University. His books include Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism. I met Dr. Grinker in May of 2007 while he was promoting Unstrange Minds, my favorite book on autism’s history. The opportunity to speak to him about his new work, Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness was an honor.
A full review of Nobody’s Normal will be posted next week. It’s a great book, easy to read, filled with interesting vignettes.
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Mental Health, Labels, Treatment and Identity
Before I was “autistic” I was many other things. Autistic is a label, applied by experts, based on observations. Labels change for many reasons. Sometimes, the labels are changed for historical reasons. Diseases named after Nazi doctors, for example, have been renamed. Sometimes, labels cease to be stigmatized as illness. Homosexuality is not an illness, yet at one time that’s how it was categorized.
Dr. Grinker’s works shed light on how the culture of mental health and mental illness create labels. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association, evolves. Now in its fifth edition (DSM5), there have been major and minor revisions that reflect changes in our culture and in the culture of psychiatry.
Labels matter. They are required by insurance and government healthcare programs. They are used to determine eligibility for accommodations at school and work. Without an “official” label, a student might not receive educational supports and an employee might not receive fair and reasonable accommodations.
Labels also define us when we adopt them. Asperger Syndrome (or Asperger’s in some texts) became an identity for many diagnosed with what is now within the Autism Spectrum Disorder categories of the DSM5.
I hope you enjoy this chat with Dr. Grinker as much as I did.
Press Release for Nobody’s Normal
Approximately twenty percent of all American adults—around 60 million people—live with a mental illness. But due to the lingering legacy of shame and secrecy around mental health, sixty percent of them receive no treatment. In Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness anthropologist and professor Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against stigma, from the 18th century through America’s major wars and into today’s high-tech economy In this uplifting book, infused with poignant human-interest stories, he shows us that in the 21st century we are finally getting closer to ending the discrimination, fear, and marginalization that has long impeded the social and therapeutic supports that reduce suffering.
During the Industrial Revolution, those who couldn’t work were banished to asylums; the Kennedy family lobotomized a daughter that didn’t fit their patrician ideals; and in the 1960s, autism was thought to be the result of bad parenting. Drawing on cutting-edge science, historical archives, his own research on neurodiversity, and cross-cultural studies in Africa and Asia, Grinker explores how our past failures have shaped the present. The book’s eye-opening narrative is interwoven with Grinker’s personal history: his family’s four generations of involvement in psychiatry include his great grandfather, a scientist who believed mental illness was a sign of biological inferiority; his grandfather, a patient of Freud; and his daughter’s experience with autism, about which he wrote Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism.
In this compassionate and revelatory book, Grinker makes the urgent case that if culture produced stigma, culture can also eradicate it.
Transcription (still) in Progress
I am still working on completing some interview transcripts. I am sorry that they were not completed in a timely manner. I use transcription services, but the results are far from ideal unless you pay additional fees.