MENTAL HEALTH CARE IN JAPAN, edited by Ruth Taplin and Sandra J. Lawman. Routledge, 2012, 148 pp., $155 (hardcover)

This collection of seven chapters makes for grim reading because it details the miserable state of mental health care in Japan.

One key problem is the, "megadose culture in psychiatric care." Patients are kept sedated with massive doses of psychiatric drugs to pacify them, a situation partially due to chronic understaffing. According to these experts, this antediluvian approach fails to help these "quiet patients" and is symptomatic of wider problems.

There is a strong stigma attached to mental illness in Japan that discourages many people from seeking the help they need. But even if they do, the health care system does not cater to their needs and is skewed toward a high dosage, poly-pharmacy therapy that generates profits for the prescribing doctors.