To the Best of Our Knowledge: Anxiety

We look at anxiety and mental illness, and the globalization of the American psyche. Patricia Pearson is the author of A Brief History of Anxiety...Yours and Mine. She tells Anne Strainchamps why she thinks Americans are so anxious.

Ethan Watters has just written a book called Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche. He argues that American versions of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and eating disorders are spreading around the world. He tells Steve Paulson that America has a big influence on how people perceive mental illness. Tufts Medical School psychiatrist Daniel Carlat believes psychiatry is in crisis. He tells Steve Paulson about his book Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry - A Doctor's Revelations about a Profession in Crisis.

Brian Kane teaches Music Theory at Yale and is fascinated by the role that sound plays in Franz Kafka's fiction. He tells Jim Fleming about a presentation he gave last year at Columbia. It was all about "acousmatic sound". [Broadcast Date: July 9, 2010]