Posted by Chairman_MAO on June 3, 2004, at 14:47:35
In reply to Re: my 12 yr old was prescribed ritalin today.. » Chairman_MAO, posted by zeugma on June 3, 2004, at 14:15:09
The Szasz point is not that your suffering does not exist. In fact, he probably would concede that it's likely many so-called "mental illnesses" have a biological basis. He would also defend your right to have drugs to ease your suffering, and that you have the right to have said drugs without a "prescription"--really a permission slip--signed by a doctor. His point is that there are no external validating criteria that objectively confirm or deny the presence of any mental illness. None. There are only correlates between brain and behavior. We have absolutely no understanding of how neural activity gives rise to consciousness, and any understanding thereof requires an entirely new [meta]physics.
If any psychiatric illnesses really were "brain diseases", they would be designated as NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS. Neurosyphilis and Alzheimer's are two examples of diseases that used to be the domain of psychiatry, but now are in the domain of neurology. Therefore, if neurology is the domain of medicine that handles diseases of the brain, what, praytell, does psychiatry handle? Biological psychiatry purports to treat disorders with a biological basis that have no identified biological basis. This is logically impossible, and thus biological psychiatry is absurd.
If you concede that the above is correct, then the masturbatory insanity analogy becomes relevant, because there ceases to be anything wrong with the child's brain. What's left then, is, as Szasz puts it, "social control masquerading as medicine".
You really should hear this straight from the horse's mouth; my words are a flimsy reconstruction of his robust arguments. Check out www.szasz.com, especially the manifesto and "Szasz Materials".
I'm not proselytizing here; it's simply vital that anyone who's interested in mental illness be familiar with him. For a less extreme reactionary psychiatrist's view, read the excellent "Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain" by Elio Frattaroli.
poster:Chairman_MAO
thread:353129
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040602/msgs/353437.html