Elizabeth Rhodes

Professor Rosen

Rhetoric of Health

2/15/12

Rhetorical Analysis of “Obsession: Against Mental Health” by Lennard J. Davis

            In the article “Obsession: Against Mental Health” Lennard Davis discusses the increasing prevalence of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and critiques the research and diagnoses of the disorder as being too simplistic. Davis makes the argument that contemporary explanations for OCD are reductionist and incomplete because they leave out the social, historical, and cultural elements of the disease (122).

            Lennard J. Davis is a professor at University of Illinois Chicago and is the director of a think tank called Project Biocultures. Bioculture is an area of thinking that incorporates medicine, social sciences, biotechnology, culture, the economy and the environment. Davis has also written a book called Obsession: A History about obsession as a part of culture and as part of OCD. The article we are analyzing is a chapter in the book Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality, whose audience is anyone interested in health and its implications in society.

            Davis begins the article by giving a glimpse into the history of OCD as a “rare and strange disease before the 1970s” (121). Today it is a common and treatable disorder and is one of the top four mental disorders in the world. Davis goes on to say that explanations for this “uptick in prevalence” of OCD cannot be simple or else they are bound to be reductionist (122). Contemporary explanations leave out the biocultural part of the disease causing them to be incomplete.

            Davis first brings up the idea that OCD may not be a discrete separate entity at all. Researchers acknowledge that they are always refining and fine tuning the diagnosis through the DSM and Davis argues that they may modify the diagnoses to the point that they are no longer left with a free-standing entity of disease.

            Davis writes that many books claim that OCD has always been around in order to support the idea that the illness is biologically universal. He argues that their claims are based on scant evidence. He also argues against the claim that OCD is global and that symptoms are consistent across cultures because of the small amount of evidence provided to back up this claim. Davis brings up the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), a standard tool used to determine if someone has OCD and a questionnaire used in the cross-national study of OCD. He writes that the questions in this study are leading, unsubtle, and given by untrained interviewers. Because of these problems, Davis questions the use of the study to justify claims of the global universality of OCD.

            Davis argues for a more complex understanding of the disease and uses the analogy that trying to understand OCD is like trying to figure out how a car got to Philadelphia and the approach being taken by researchers is more like trying to figure out how a spark plug functions (126). In other words, the researchers are too invested in the mechanisms of the brain while not realizing those mechanisms are only part of the story of the disorder.

            Davis goes on to explain why the uptick in diagnoses of OCD cannot be explained solely by under-diagnoses in the past or by media exposure allowing people to come forward. Neither can medical journals give narratives of OCD in which there are no active agents, merely effects of the “hidden epidemic” (129).

            Throughout the article, Davis tries to show that mental health can be driven by complex biocultural factors and ends it with this statement: “To be against an explanation or a set of explanations doesn’t mean that one is against health. Likewise, to be for a set of procedures and diagnoses can be a way of being against health as well. (130)”

            Davis uses lots of citations and statistics to bolster his argument. He also uses a very methodical process of bringing up a possible explanation or objection to his argument and pulling it apart to prove that it is wrong or inadequate then moving on to the next possible explanation and pulling it apart. This arrangement enhances his argument and makes his point of view very persuasive. He slowly leads the audience to his conclusion that simplistic explanations of complex diseases will always be inadequate and “against health” (130).

            Davis also thinks of his audience, anyone who is interested in health, when writing this article. He uses everyday language to make the article clear and easy to understand for his audience. Davis also uses multiple analogies in his article. Davis is talking about complicated medical terminology but is able to make it clear to his audience through the use of analogy. For example, at the end of page 125 Davis uses the analogy of trying to find OCD in a locked box that doesn’t exist for trying to pinpoint a specific area of the brain or specific arrangement of neurotransmitters that is responsible for the occurrence of OCD.

            Davis is able to effectively convey his argument that contemporary explanations for OCD are reductionist and incomplete because they leave out the social, historical, and cultural elements of the disease through the use of clear language, analogies, citations, and statistical evidence. He explains that to be against an explanation doesn’t mean that one is against health and challenges the audience to think of OCD from more than a biological standpoint.

Works Cited

Davis, Lennard J. “Obsession: Against Mental Health.” Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality. New York: New York UP, 2010. 121-132. Print.