They are often "like a" disease, argued Szasz, which makes the medical metaphor understandable, but in no way validates it as an accurate description or explanation. In his IFPE address (Szasz, 2002), for example, Szasz wrote that. [25] Nanny just told people what to do; counselors also tell them what to think and what to feel. This is quite misleading, because his daughter Fionas first hospitalization, in 1977, followed a break-up with her current boy friend. But fostering ethical reflection in this sense is not really possible if the therapist is merely the agent or instrument of his client, if the client calls the shots and simply decides that he cannot or will not reflect seriously on the interests of others, as they define them. So if we accept that mental illnesses are social constructions, as Foucault and Szasz argue, then the psychiatric profession is a mere rationale for enforcement of societys standards. As a result, his ethical judgments, though enviably clear and consistent, on a purely logical plane, often lack realism, generosity and simple common sense., References:Burston, D., 1991,The Legacy of Erich Fromm, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Burston, D., 1996,The Wing of Madness: The Life and Work of R.D.Laing, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Clay, J., 1996,R.D.Laing: A Divided Self, London: Hodder & Staughton.Fischer, C.T., 2002, introduction,The Humanistic Psychologist, 30:1-9.Laing, A.C., 1994,R.D.Laing: A Biography, London: Peter Owen.Laing, R.D., 1960,The Divided Self, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Stepansky, P., 1999,Freud, Surgery and the Surgeons, Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic PressSzasz, T., 2002, The Cure of Souls in the Therapeutic State, International Federation for Psychoanalytic Education annual Conference, Fort Lauderdale, November 2.Szasz, T., 2003, The Secular Cure of Souls, Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis, 14.2, Life-Enhancing Anxiety makes a bold proposal: It is not less anxiety that we need today, but more, at least of a certain kind of anxiety. Admittedly, he carries this off with apparent conviction and great rhetorical skill. All claims to science and disease and an external source of truth are false pretensions. I know there are many pro-Szasz ideologues out there, especially among some strident anti-psychiatry groups. In psychotherapy, as in marriage or friendship, each person is a unique, irreplaceable individual. Szasz, Laing and Existential Psychotherapy Existential-integrative psychotherapy, developed by Kirk Schneider(2008), is a relatively new development within humanistic and existential therapy. Today, protecting the mental patient from himself the anorexic from starving to death, the depressed from killing himself, the manic from spending his money is regarded as one of the foremost duties of anyone categorized as a mental health professional, psychoanalysis included. (p.6). This is legal mercy masquerading as medicine, according to Szasz.[19]. The Medicalization of Everyday Life offers a no-nonsense perspective on contemporary dogma. Though Laing did little to extract Fiona from Gartnavel after her hospitalization, or to prevent her from receiving ECT, as Adrian Laing points out, it was probably because he deemed any effort to intervene on her behalf doomed from the start. He argued that the war on drugs leads states to do things that would have never been considered half a century before, such as prohibiting a person from ingesting certain substances or interfering in other countries to impede the production of certain plants, e.g. [8][10], In 1961, Szasz testified before a United States Senate Committee, arguing that using mental hospitals to incarcerate people defined as insane violated the general assumptions of the patient-doctor relationship, and turned the doctor into a warden and keeper of a prison. Szasz lives in an imaginary world where one and the same ethical principle the right to suicide, or to absolute confidentiality in all imaginable circumstances applies equally to all people, regardless of age, background and condition. Admittedly, despite the sound and fury of their previous exchanges, the published work of Szasz and Laing discloses far more points of convergence and intellectual kinship than Dr. Szasz is presently willing or able to admit (Burston, 1996, chapter 8). Szasz presents mental health professionals with two stark alternatives: he must choose between serving the interests of the client, as the client defines them; or serving the interests of the clients family or employer or insurance company, or the interests of his profession, religion, community, or the state, as they define them. The prospect of being a double agent, as Szasz calls it, and therefore, presumably, of betraying the clients trust and confidence isnt very appealing, of course. Request Permissions. But before outlining my various misgivings, please note that I share Szaszs contempt for the vulgar misconception that . Nor would a careful perusal of Fischers work substantiate this careless attribution. "[13]:85 He maintained that, while people behave and think in disturbing ways, and those ways may resemble a disease process (pain, deterioration, response to various interventions), this does not mean they actually have a disease. [4] A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, as what he saw as the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as scientism. Insanity was a legal tactic invented to circumvent the punishments of the Church, which at the time included confiscation of the property of those who committed suicide, often leaving widows and orphans destitute. Their opinions truly were myths. To Szasz, disease can only mean something people "have", while behavior is what people "do". Hence the remark: Well, Ruskin Place or Gartnavel, whats the difference? Imagine a psychiatrist who claims that there is no such thing as mental illness. In his 2006 book about Virginia Woolf he stated that she put an end to her life by a conscious and deliberate act, her suicide being an expression of her freedom of choice. A short review of one of the most popular debates in behavioral science.
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