Written Critique On Disciplined Heart

What is depression? If you were to ask a hundred people this exact question, you would probably get a hundred extremely different answers. It is believed that at some point in everyone's life that we are affected by depression, but it depends on how a person interprets their state of mind or condition in order to recognize this disease. In the book, Disciplined Hearts: History, Identity, and Depression in an American Indian Community, the author, Theresa DeLeane O'Nell, tried to analyze the complex relationship between culture and depression. Due to O'Nell's great interest and knowledge about American Indians' culture, especially the Flatheads, she dedicated her time and energy in examining this unrecognizable illness, depression. While analyze this relationship, she provides the reader with valuable information about the Flathead Indians' culture, which includes their history, rituals, language and many other elements that makes this assessment between this culture and depression easier to understand.

Theresa DeLeane O'Nell focused her fieldwork on the way the Flathead Indians interpreted depression. O'Nell wanted to clarify that diagnosis of mental illness has some contributions from cultural roots among the Flathead society. Among these people, depression was considered a problem that was dealt with among one self, but not as a concern that involved the entire culture. The author mentioned in the Introduction that some claimed that 70 to 80 percent of the Flathead Indian community is already suffering from some certain of depression (O'Nell, pg 5). With O'Nell's incredible knowledge and understand about the Flathead Indians, she was able to achieve very personal angle on this complicated subject. By including individual stories from different members of the Flathead people, O'Nell attempted to make this book as comfortable as possible while still tackling the dramatic increase of cases