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Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry

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Prof. Thomas Szasz recognizes that so-called mental illness which are not based in actualMEDICAL pathology are "diseases" only by the analogic and metaphorical qualities of language. Prof. Sasz maintains that the mind is not the brain, the mental functions are not reducible to brain functions, and that so-called "mental diseases" are not disases but are refelctions and manifestations of the way persons deal with problems-in-living. Because of his respect for human dignity and human freedom, Szasz is a classical liberal whose writings are compatible with the freedom and liberty issues characteristic of the so-called "right wing" section of the political and spectrum. Szasz is incisive, pungent, brilliant, insightful on the role of the threaputic industry within the totalitarian state and the uses of psychiatric voodoo for control of persons and thought. Accordingly, he comes across as a spokesperson of the liberty-freedom perspective -- what Alice in Wonderland said is the same thing as love, namely, minding one's own business. AS Szasz, points out, the psychiatric concept of "disease" attempts to make the mind, will and emotions a material object which supposedly can be "treated". His view of human freedom shapes his view of politics. The "mental" illness are social constructions in the form of political arrangments for exerting power over other beings -- exactly what the Totalitarlian Left sets itself to accomplish with self-rightous vigor. The various functional mental illness are real behaviors, but they are that, behaviors, not diseases or "symptoms" of "disease". Statists, who begin with an ethic of control, tend to oppose Szazian thought. Szasz, who does not begin with a political platform, does article values of freedom and recognition of the religious and ideological nature of psychiatric voodoo, does make conclusions which are favorable to human freedom rather than to a global psychiatric ward. Prof. Szasz presents is one of the foremost, perhaps the foremost challenge to the theology of psychiatry and the efforts of that psychiatry to subject mankind to its impirmatur.

T.S. Szasz reminds us that schizophrenia never existed in any medical records before the 20th century. It is an invention, or merely a new label for a kind of behaviour that previously belonged to other medical or social classifications.

As most of his readers already know, Szasz rightly believes that there ain't no such thing as a mental illness. Not as long as we mean "illness" like we mean it when we speak of any "illnesses" except the so-called "mental" ones. What we call mental illness is actually merely a certain kind of (litteraly) /abnormal/ (out of the norm) behaviour.

Schizophrenia is a myth.

A must read for open-minded people not too obsessed with that "libertarian-conservative" sticker...

Thomas Szasz (born 1920) is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center. He is a well-known critic of psychiatry, of the social role of medicine in modern society, and is a social libertarian.

He states in the Preface to this 1976 book, "In this book I shall try to show how schizophrenia has become the Christ on the cross that psychiatrists worship ... and how our understanding of both psychiatry and schizophrenia may be advanced by approaching this 'diagnosis' as if it pointed to a religious symbol rather than to a medical disease."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"Real medicine thus helps real physicians to treat or cure real patients; fake medicine (psychiatry) helps fake physicians (psychiatrists) to influence or control fake patients (the mentally sick)."
"Briefly put, I have maintained that the intervention institutional psychiatrists call 'mental hospitalization' is, in fact, a form of imprisonment; that the imposition of such loss of liberty on innocent persons is immoral (and, in the United States, unconstitutional); and that the phenomenon psychiatrists call 'schizophrenia' is not a demonstrable medical disease but the name of certain kinds of social deviation (or of behavior unacceptable to the speaker)."
"But if all so-called mental disease is brain disease, if all mental disease is really only the 'mental symptom' of conditions such as paresis and pellagra---then it makes no sense to have two classes of brain diseases: one neurological, and the other mental. Instead, it would be necessary to insist ... that mental diseases are not diseases at all..."
"The greatest symbolic and social power of 'schizophrenia' lies precisely in its being inextricably tied to the idea of disease and the institution of medicine. Thus, an effort to offer a nonmedical model for schizophrenia is about as feasible, and futile, as would be the effort to offer a nontheological model for the Eucharist."

Szasz once again lampoons his fellow psychiatrists in Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry. He first details psychiatric history at the turn of the century and howthe discovery of paresis as a true disease lead them to use it as the paradigmfor all "mental illess." He then challenges the hypocritical views of "anti-psychiatrists" Laing and Cooper, showing how their values represent collectivism and communism rather than individualism and liberty. In the chapter entitled Schizophrenia: Psychiatric Syndrome or Scientific Scandle, He sarcastically demonstrates the conflicting hypothesis, treatments, statistics, and research that are normally used to prove the seriousness of Schizophrenia. He concludes powerfully by comparing psychiatry and other social sciences to religion and theology, both whose purpose is to control the mind and heart of man. The book will certainly make those who have a stake in the medical model of schizophrenia cringe when the truth about their pseudoscientific enterprise wins out.

For some reason, there is a prevailing belief that Thomas Szasz is a champion of the rights of the mentally ill. In fact, he is a right-wing libertarian, and his views on mental illness follow logically from his political views. This book leads one to wonder if Szasz has ever actually met anyone with a mental illness.

Starting from the premise that there is no such thing as mental illness, he is led to the delightful claim that people with "so-called mental illnesses" are just deliberately acting crazy (it is not clear why anyone would want to do this, especially in the light of the emphasis Szasz lays on the horrors of forced treatment, etc.) and should just be forced to "pull their socks up". He opposes the defence of not guilty by reason of insanity and the provision of state support for those unable to work because of their "so-called mental illness". He demonstrates the level of his compassion for people with schizophrenia in such quotes as "Of course, schizophrenia may be said to be like a journey or like a disease; but it is also like many other conditions or situations, like being childish, aimless, useless, and homeless, or being angry, obstreperous, conceited, and selfish." He accuses those more sympathetic to people with schizophrenia of "allowing incompetent, destructive and self-destructive persons to wallow in their self-contempt and contempt of others...".

It is interesting to contrast this with the lyrical and intensely compassionate writings of authors such as Kay Redfield Jamison and Oliver Sacks, a biologically-oriented psychiatrist and a neurologist respectively.

Szasz is a libertarian with hatred for totalitarian governments. Nothing wrong with that. But he teamed up with the Church of Scientology years ago as like-minded bedfellows to "do in" the practice of psychiatry. Szasz, most likely because of well-felt political beliefs. The Church of Scientology, most likely because its founder saw psychiatry as competition to his Way to Happiness, the e-meter.

Szasz is old thought that has been debunked by current scientific knowledge about the brain.