Skip to main content

Reflection on the views of Thomas Szasz

Anushree Saboo

Exam bonus 

In his book titled, "The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct," Thomas Szasz goes too far in claiming that mental illness is a myth. Szasz argues against the illnesses of the mind and says that naming problems which we today call "mental illnesses" is a logical error.
Though Thomas Szasz would love to have a world without psychiatry, it seems horrendous to even think of that as a possibility. Achieving a utopic world without any mental illnesses would be idealistic but mental illnesses do exist and it is wrong not to acknowledge that.  

Szasz accepted that people have problems in their life and coping difficulties but did not want to label these problems as "mental diseases" rather call them "difficulties in living." But his supporters failed to notice that Szasz's definition of disease is very narrow. His definition of disease is obsessively centred around cellular pathology which interprets disease as alterations in the body at a cellular level. In his views against Thomas Szasz, Robert Evans Kendell pointed out that if Szasz's notion of 'disease' was supported then diseases like migraine would fail to qualify into the category. There is no singular perspective on the way diseases are defined in medicine. 

Psychiatrists can help alleviate 'problems in living,' according to Szasz, and this should happen through a contract rather than coercion. He also states that psychiatrists should not believe that they have the utmost authority over such problems and the highest expertise to help people. This is true and can create problems in the society. If psychiatrists are portrayed as having the solution to all 'problems in living,' people will become overly dependent on them to solve their issues. This undermines the ways one can help themselves. 

Szasz highlights individual rights and people's personal responsibility of their life and problems, but there are some cases where people with mental disorders lack the capability of coping with their difficulties and in such cases, psychiatric intervention and psychopathology can assist and bring about positive results. 

Labeling has always been an issue in the field of psychology. Should we let professionals define what we are going through? Arguments made by Thomas Szasz about the medicalisation of 'problems of living' lead us to the issue of over diagnosis in today's society. The number of psychiatric diagnoses is increasing fast and the criterions for existing ones have been lowered, leading to problem in people being labeled with a certain mental health problem. Many writers, critics and psychologists share Szasz's concern in this aspect but calling mental illness a myth is overdoing it. There is a reality attached to psychological dysfunction and many people suffer because of it. Hence, to completely dismiss the idea of the "mind" and its associated problems is unjustified.



References:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-bulletin/article/no-such-thing-as-mental-illness-critical-reflections-on-the-major-ideas-and-legacy-of-thomas-szasz/3F024F2B9FB9766E5A7C489047207EDC/core-reader

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/reality-play/201209/revisiting-the-myth-mental-illness-and-thomas-szasz

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Burari Deaths: The Psychopathology of Lalit, a Biopsychosocial Perspective

Pankhudi Narayan Blogpost 1  TW: Death, mentions of suicide.         On July 1st of 2018, eleven members of a family were found dead in their shared home in the Burari area of Delhi. The deaths seemed to be fashioned in a ritualistic manner and evidence suggested that the family members were willing participants. This was the Bhatia family, a typical middle-class Indian joint family. Bhopal Singh who had passed away and his wife Narayani Devi formed the older generations of the family and were Lalith’s parents. The most compelling evidence in the uncovering of the events that led to the death of an entire family was provided by eleven diaries found by authorities. The diaries described the events that transpired before the deaths, discussing a ritual that needed to be conducted and the diary entries were corroborated by the post mortem findings as the accounts were found to be consistent with injuries (Yadav et al., 2021). It was uncovered that Lalit, a member of the family who was the
Post a Comment
Read more

Made in Heaven: An analysis of Faiza Naqvi

Vyoma Vijai Blog Post 3 ‘Made in Heaven’ is a popular Indian web series created by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kaagti and was launched in March 2018. The show gained a lot of attention in the first few days of it coming out. It is a bold show that focuses on marriage practices in the rich and elite class of Delhi. The show focuses on the social issues and practices that are often not spoken of or are kept closeted. These issues include homosexuality, dowry, molestation and other questionable Indian customs. The story follows the lives of multiple characters at the same time. The two most important characters are Tara and Karan who run a wedding planning agency.   Tara is married to a rich industrialist whose name is Adil and her best friend in the show is Faiza, played by Kalki Koechlin. This essay analyses Faiza’s character and her role in this web series. Faiza is a complex character to understand. Her actions make it hard for the viewers to decide whether they l
Post a Comment
Read more

Disorderly Delvian: A Deep Dive into "Anna Delvey" through the Lens of NPD

       A markedly thick accent, a mop of blonde hair, a magical array of unimaginably expensive clothing, and an air of calculated mystery mesh uncomfortably together to invent Anna Delvey, the centre of Netflix’s appropriately named documentary/drama series, “Inventing Anna”. This series tells or rather retells the fascinating story of how one woman deceived the creme de la creme of New York society as well as some prestigious financial institutions under the guise that she was a wealthy heiress from Germany. The series follows a journalist, Vivian Kent, as she tries to uncover the carefully constructed web of lies Anna spun around high society after her arrest, heavily interspersed by flashbacks, present-day court hearings, and interviews with the enigma herself (Shondaland, 2022). Anna as a character, infused with a troubling reality and a dramatised narrative, presents an interesting scope to study the symptomatology of Narcissistic Personality Disorder as presented in her behaviou
Post a Comment
Read more