Key Research - Szasz

• What were Szasz's aims?

  • Challenge medical model 
  • Reject the psychiatric treatments justified by this approach  
  • Stop using terms like “psychoses” “neuroses” and “mental illness” and think of individual behaviours  
  • Reject the image of patients as helpless victims of events outside their control 
  • Stop coercive psychiatric practices which are incompatible with moral ideas of free societies  
• What did Szasz believe about mental illness?

  • Mental health is a myth 
  • Challenges medical model 
  • Support of humanistic approach 
  • Political agenda 
  • Social construct  
• MENTAL HEALTH IS A MYTH: What did Szasz say to defend this?


  • Individual has freewill and puts themselves in that situation and mental illness is a result 
  • If mental health was a real phenomenon, many disorders that are no longer considered disorders e.g. homosexuality would not have been removed from diagnostics so readily 
• CHALLENGES THE MEDICAL MODEL: What did Szasz say to defend this?


  • Medical model is a conceptual error (error in the measure)
  • It is a metaphor - Person diagnosed with mental illness may be found to have physical illness, showing misdiagnosis  
  • Physical illnesses can be cured but mental illnesses can't
  • Cannot be treated with drugs as not a real disease and therapy should be used instead which is tailored to the individual 
  • Mental patients are active players in their own real life drama and not passive victims of physiological processes as they put themselves in that situation 
• SUPPORTS HUMANISM: How did Szasz do this?


  • Individual has freewill and puts themselves in that situation and mental illness is a result 
  • Supports tailoring therapy to the individual considering the subjective experience of the individual which is holistic 
  • Mental patients are active players in their own real life drama and not passive victims of physiological processes as they put themselves in that situation 
• MENTAL ILLNESS IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT: How did Szasz defend this?


  • Society determines what mental illness is, showing it is not a real disease and drugs cannot be used to treat it
• MENTAL ILLNESS HAS A POLITICAL AGENDA: How did Szasz defend this?


  • The people in power determined that mental illness is like any other physical illness, which is not backed up by science, showing that mental illness is a metaphor  
• What were the conclusions?

  According to Szasz: 

  • Psychiatry is a pseudoscience 
  • Mental illness is a myth and a metaphor 
  • Mental illness is now considered a legal concept  

   

  General: 

  • There are alternatives to the medical model for an explanation of mental illness