Monika Lin

Skipping Girls No. 5, plaster replicas of pills, polymer paint (acrylic), epoxy resin and ink on wood panel, 35 x 25 cm, 2010

This series entitled “Double Happines” is in part an investigation into our country’s growing dependence on medication as a means towards psychiatric health. The psycho-pharmaceutical industry has broadened its reach to include treatment of mild disorders through prescription medication without psychological co-treatment nor placing restrictions on usage, thus creating a society in which individuals are medicated for unregulated and indefinite periods of time rather than encouraged to make the necessary adjustments in order to deal with fluctuating stress in their lives. Motivated by financial gain, the pharmaceutical industry has resorted to the same marketing strategies as purveyors of more conventional consumer items.
This marketing is so convincing in promoting the attainment of happiness through medication that the issue of self-diagnosis presents itself in an alarming fashion.
Increasing numbers of individuals deceived by such promotion now view unthreatening signs of discomfort or poor health as symptomatic of medical conditions that may not exist. Coerced and trusting patients demand of their doctors drug treatments based on the perpetuated mis-information, establishing a society of the self-medicated as well as the self-diagnosed.