Thomas Szasz

• The myth of mental illness 1960/61 - Thomas Szasz - Anti psychiatric movement
• Organic - Abnormality of cells, tissues or organs
• Szasz's key conclusions:

  1 USA - Mental health practice changed to be 100% under government control and doctors legally obliged to ensure safety.

  2 Medical psychiatry is against the principles of a free society ; coercive, unethical, involuntary.

  3 There is no scientific evidence that mental illness is an organic diagnosable disorder.

  4 If it was true they were organic they would be reclassified as a physical illness - Numbers of illnesses would decrease but they would increase in numbers because mental illness is metaphor, its subjective descriptions of bad behaviour.
• Szasz's key conclusions:

  5 Pre 20th century we correctly identified mental illness as having non organic causes, troubles of the spirit/soul

  6 Mental illnesses are not medical diseases - They are the medicalisation of disturbed and disturbing behaviours - subjective.

  7 Psychiatry is a vehicle for social control.