Szasz

• What did Szasz believe?

  Mental illness was actually undesirable behaviour which was medicalised. He believed mental illness was:

  1. A "problem of living". This describes the inability to process experiences and suffering rather than medicalising disturbed behaviour
  2. A misdiagnosed physical illness as diagnosis is subjective and is not based on scientific assessment
  3. He believed that the medical model was dehumanising as it ignores the suffering of people- he believed mental hospitals are more like prisons to control people's behaviour which deprives them of the freedom to behave as they choose