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Psychopharmaceuticals as ‘Essential Medicines’: Local Negotiations of Global Access to Psychotherapeutic Medicines in India

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The Sedated Society

Abstract

This chapter seeks to trace the social life of psychopharmaceuticals on their journey from being framed as global ‘essential medicines’ to their distribution locally. It is concerned with how the global framing of drugs as essential medicines is interlaced with the ways that drugs come to be seen as essential to grassroots and localised forms of care, and particularly with how drugs come to dominate mental health work at a grassroots level in India. Engaging with interviews with the staff of mental health Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in India, this chapter highlights the ambivalence that many people feel towards psychopharmaceuticals, despite NGOs facilitating and negotiating the social life of psychopharmaceuticals in nuanced ways. Despite nuances, the chapter concludes that serious concerns still remain about the validity and ideology of global mental health advocacy, and about the individual and socio-political effects of the psychopharmaceuticals that it constructs as “essential”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The WHO and the Movement for Global Mental Health subsume mental, neurological and substance use disorders into one category, however the names they give this category vary and often terms are used interchangeably. The main terms used are mental health conditions/problems, mental illness, mental disorders and neuropsychiatric disorders (WHO 2010a: iii; WHO 2010b: 2). Throughout this chapter the term ‘mental disorders’ will be used but always in scare quotes to signify recognition of the need to problematise the language used to name distress.

  2. 2.

    The complementary list presents essential medicines for priority diseases, for which specialised diagnostic or monitoring facilities, and/or specialist medical care, and/or specialist training are needed. In case of doubt, medicines may also be listed as complementary on the basis of consistent higher costs or less attractive cost- effectiveness in a variety of settings.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    China Mills

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  1. China Mills
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Sciences, University of Roehampton, London, United Kingdom

    James Davies

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Mills, C. (2017). Psychopharmaceuticals as ‘Essential Medicines’: Local Negotiations of Global Access to Psychotherapeutic Medicines in India. In: Davies, J. (eds) The Sedated Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44911-1_9

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