This book takes the reader from basic questions like What is health? and What is a psychiatric disorder?, into the midst of people's present mental health and enhancement choices. More and more people receive psychiatric diagnoses and the use of psychopharmacological drugs keeps increasing. Concurrently, media report the popularity of brain doping or study drugs on campuses as well as at the workplace. This open access book tests the hypothesis of whether mental health and enhancement can be seen as two sides of the same coin: that the demands on cognitive and emotional functioning have been increasing and psychoactive substances are used to meet these demands.Whether the increasing number of diagnoses means that really more people are suffering from psychological problems will be discussed just as whether the media accurately describe brain doping as a new and rising trend. An individual section describes non-pharmacological alternatives to maintain and increase one'smental well-being. To answer these and many more questions, the author critically reviews evidence from epidemiology, psychiatry, and psychology.That people with and without psychiatric diagnoses are often using the same substances for example, the stimulant drugs Adderall or Ritalin to cope with their problems is presented as evidence to look beyond the traditional distinction between disorder, health, and enhancement. Likewise, different meanings of drug in historical and present contexts illustrate that the way we think of mental health and (il)legitimate drug use reflects our own culture. The book's focus on addiction/substance use disorders makes it also relevant to the ongoing discussion of drug policy.

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access Examines the changing trends in diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders Explores the enhancement debate and the substances used by people for different reasons Unpacks the social and legal ramifications of the regulation of different drugs

Autorentext

Stephan Schleim is Associate Professor of Theoretical Psychology at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands and a well-known science writer, particularly in German-speaking countries. He has been publishing with Springer Nature and its associates continuously since 2005 and his writing has been translated into several languages. His German-language book Brain, Psyche and Society (2021) recently hit 250,000 accesses on SpringerLink and his most recent book Mental Health and Enhancement (2023) was published open access with PalgraveMacmillan, in the same series as Brain Development and the Law. Thus far, Schleim was principal investigator of two related research projects (VolkswagenFoundation, Dutch Research Council) and wrote and edited more than ten books, besides publishing in peer-reviewed academic journals. His scholarly articles on Frontiers commonly belong to the top 10% most accessed of all publications.

Klappentext

This book takes the reader from basic questions like What is health? and What is a psychiatric disorder? , into the midst of people s present mental health and enhancement choices. More and more people receive psychiatric diagnoses and the use of psychopharmacological drugs keeps increasing. Concurrently, media report the popularity of brain doping or study drugs on campuses as well as at the workplace. This open access book tests the hypothesis of whether mental health and enhancement can be seen as two sides of the same coin: that the demands on cognitive and emotional functioning have been increasing and psychoactive substances are used to meet these demands.Whether the increasing number of diagnoses means that really more people are suffering from psychological problems will be discussed just as whether the media accurately describe brain doping as a new and rising trend. An individual section describes non-pharmacological alternatives to maintain and increase one smental well-being. To answer these and many more questions, the author critically reviews evidence from epidemiology, psychiatry, and psychology. That people with and without psychiatric diagnoses are often using the same substances for example, the stimulant drugs Adderall or Ritalin to cope with their problems is presented as evidence to look beyond the traditional distinction between disorder, health, and enhancement. Likewise, different meanings of drug in historical and present contexts illustrate that the way we think of mental health and (il)legitimate drug use reflects our own culture. The book s focus on addiction/substance use disorders makes it also relevant to the ongoing discussion of drug policy.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Mental Health Basics.- Mental Enhancement Basics.- Instrumental Substance Use.- Conclusion.