An Analysis of Satel's Bread and Shelter

The article by Sally Satel, author of the book ''One Nation under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance.''  Focuses on one of the many dimensions of international aid. In this day and age, the various nations of the world are demarcated based on the level of economic development, industrial development and their contribution to research. In addition, there are nations which enjoy the benefits of peaceful co-existence while there are those who are still wallowing in the miasma of political chaos and wars.

In a bid to help out the nations that do not enjoy a level of stability that is necessary for human existence, the better off nations through humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations and other means as well reach out in whatever capacity they can have to these less privileged nations. One of these capacities is through the provision of healthcare. The article in discussion looks into the validity of psychiatric help to the victims of war such as the refugees.

Psychiatric help as depicted focuses on various forms of ailment such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, post traumatic post disorder among others. Based on a number of symptoms that a given person manifests, a psychiatrist will tell what kind of illness the person possesses then takes the person through a healing process. In the article under discussion, it has been preempted that this kind of methodology for dealing with the symptoms is not always correct. It is in addition implied that the persons under psychiatric analysis in this case by the foreign psychiatrist may have been having some symptoms that are familiar for multiple conditions. A further analysis reveals that the doctors had misdiagnosed them.

Therefore, this essay takes to present arguments on Bread and Shelter Yes, Psychiatrists No. To begin with, it is less likely that a person with a different culture and upbringing would understand all the underlying conditions of a given patient and treat them accordingly. They are liable to making error based on misjudgments. That has been the case for the tsunami victims of Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Rwanda as has been indicated in the article.

Secondly, the methods that would be applied could not be comprehensive enough to cover for the needs of these patients. Point in case, the victims of Rwanda who were asked to relate their experiences. This prompted them to relive their experiences. Most of the time, this technique is effective in therapy while at other times, it may only aggravate the situation.

Despite all this, there is need to have psychiatrists helping out in relevant situations. In as much as psychiatric help is often considered very effective, care should be taken that it is not overrated. The alternative would be to look into the other needs that the patients would require and provide them accordingly. This way, these patients would be self reliant and provide for their own needs. By solving the root problems that cumulative cause them to have symptoms that suggest psychiatric problems.

However, there is the question of foreign help that always comes about. It has been argued that offering donations to such people would improve their situations in the short term while in the long term; they would be in much more tragedy. I would therefore suggest that if the case of providing bread is preferentially chosen over psychiatric help, effective methods of providing that should also be formulated. An example would be to have the victims involved in entrepreneural skills. Such activities would make them occupied and by engaging themselves mentally and be in a situation to solve their problems.

It has been mentioned that some of the underlying problems that would be affecting these victims is poverty, marital discord and physical illness. The provision of bread could also be done by alleviating these problems. Poverty especially in the third world has been a problem that has been looked into for a very long problem. It is a problem that has too many causes, these causes themselves being problems (corruption, insufficient resources, bad governance, and unemployment, just to mention a few). Marital discord has a lot to do with the social fabric that constitutes the study population-their beliefs and culture. By educating these people on how culture belief can have severe consequences to them in their lives, they are able to take up culture that will mould them to appreciate values that uphold human respect and dignity while doing away with the detrimental ones. Apart from culture, other factors such as peer influence influence these practices. Counseling can be offered in such a=cases. On the case of physical illness, measure such as ensuring that there is a reasonable doctor patient ratio, affordable medication and affordable equipment for the treatment of these patients can be provided for.

It is important to know that ethics serve a great role in the dynamics that determine which method is applicable, while which is not.