Sport and Youth Suicide

The biomedical domination of current Western society insists that all physical and mental illness lies within the individual and the individual alone must be treated by pharmaceutical, psycho-theraputic or surgical means. Under the domain of priests, suicide was once considered as badness; later, under early psychiatry, it was sadness; now, in the hands of the biomedicalists, it is madness or, more politely, "mental health issues". In two decades we have had a 35-fold increase in "diagnosed" mental illness. Anglo-world children are now said to have more mental than physical disabilities. Broadly, we are swamped by anxiety disorders, mood disorders, impulse-control disorders and substance-use disorders. "Happiness" is considered both a norm and a birthright: not happy is somehow an abnormality.