Quote:
Originally posted by gov135
It's always been my belief that American culture doesn't take mental disease seriously. If we did take things like depression more seriously, I believe we would see our losses due to suicide decreased.
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Agreed. I think there's a certain belief in the power in individual will and rugged individualism in American culture that leads to the discounting of mental illness. I think a lot of people think that one can fix one's self without help (hence the success of self-help books) and most of the time it's not true. So people are less willing to seek help and less willing to see the need for help in others.
Not that America is the only place with a suicide problem. Japan's got a huge one, of very different etiology in my opinion.