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Document Details :

Title: Whistling in the Dark
Author(s): VISKER, Rudi
Journal: Ethical Perspectives
Volume: 8    Issue: 3   Date: October 2001   
Pages: 168-178
DOI: 10.2143/EP.8.3.583183

Abstract :
According to a recent newspaper article, 40 million people in the European Union live in anxiety every single day (results of an unnamed survey of 20,000 patients in 558 doctor's offices in Germany). Apparently only 6% of the population can summon the courage to talk about their anxiety with their doctor. It would seem that doctors have too little time to recognize the signs of what the article calls the “new illness”. Nor are they encouraged to do so by the renowned scientific journals, where the focus is solely on a purely medical treatment for anxiety, or by the pharmaceutical industry, where anxiety is equated with “long-term easy money”. The title of the article immediately struck me, especially since it seemed to be in flat contradiction to its subtitle: 'Anxiety as the other side of affluence. Being afraid without knowing why'. Let me first of all try to explain why this contradiction did not really surprise me.

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