szasz

• aim

  To revisit Szasz's own famous essay 'The Myth of Mental Illness' and book of same name (1960,1961), considering the current medicalisation of abnormal behaviour in light of his earlier arguments
• research method

  Essay on psychiatry and how it affects those who experience mental health issues
• 1960s Szasz's views

  *Health care for mental health consisted of mental hospitals and private professionals

  *Mental patients are treated no better than prisoners, patients have few rights

  *Mental illness is not the same as physical illness

  *Mental illness doesn't exist, so it's foolish to look for causes/cures
• 2010 reconsiderations after 50 years pt 1


  Szasz considered the changes that took place in US mental healthcare, including: changing attitudes towards 'incurable' patients who were previously confined to mental hospitals, blurring of distinctions between private and state psychiatry the overlap between medical hospitals and mental hospitals and voluntary/involuntary confinement, new legal responsibility on mental health professionals to prevent patients causing harm to themselves/others.

  *Drive to medicalise (can be diagnosed eg via DSM and treated accordingly) and politicise (those in power have openly declared that mental illness is just like any other physical illness)

  *Szasz rejects the current medical paradigm, arguing that mental health is a metaphor - if mental illnesses are found to have a physical cause, they were never mental illness, but instead undiagnosed physical illness

  *He proposes that the term 'mental illness' actually refers to the judgement of some people about the disturbing or socially unacceptable behaviours of other people whom they label 'mentally ill'

  *Draws on the controversial insanity defence used by defendants in court: we seemingly reject the idea that there are bad people in the world for the idea that bad behaviour is the product of mental disorder
• reconsiderations in 2010 pt 2

  *Our underlying worldview is that people are inherently healthy/good until afflicted by mental health, making them unhealthy/bad - important implications on human freedom, as by adopting this approach, psychiatry & society denies people both a responsibility for wrong-doing, and also their liberty from the oppression of the mental health system (person loses their importance - because illness is to be treated)

  *Due to duty to protect patients and those around them, psychiatrist acts as jalier, imprisoning the patient in system & denying them the right to seek, accept and reject medical diagnosis & treatment

  *Psychiatrists wield great power (able to categorise, label & treat 'disturbed' person) - this is normalised in society, making the mental health system 'insulated' and protected from criticism as it's seem as morally and medically legitimate. - having mental illness becomes a synonym for becoming a patient
• conclusions

  1 The medicalisation and politicisation of psychiatry over the past 50 years has led to a dehumanised model of care

  2 Mental illness should be regarded as a metaphor (fiction)

  3 Szasz rejects the moral legitimacy of psychiatry as it violates human liberty