The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (Revised Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A Myth Indeed
Review: Descriptive criteria aside, what is the essence of mental disorders? Are they merely physiological disorders of the brain, or, more precisely of its chemistry? If so, can they be cured by restoring the balance of substances and secretions in that mysterious organ? And, once equilibrium is reinstated - is the illness "gone" or is it still lurking there, "under wraps", waiting to erupt? Are psychiatric problems inherited, rooted in faulty genes (though amplified by environmental factors) - or brought on by abusive or wrong nurturance?

These questions are the domain of the "medical" school of mental health.

Others cling to the spiritual view of the human psyche. They believe that mental ailments amount to the metaphysical discomposure of an unknown medium - the soul. Theirs is a holistic approach, taking in the patient in his or her entirety, as well as his milieu.

The members of the functional school regard mental health disorders as perturbations in the proper, statistically "normal", behaviours and manifestations of "healthy" individuals, or as dysfunctions. The "sick" individual - ill at ease with himself (ego-dystonic) or making others unhappy (deviant) - is "mended" when rendered functional again by the prevailing standards of his social and cultural frame of reference.

In a way, the three schools are akin to the trio of blind men who render disparate descriptions of the very same elephant. Still, they share not only their subject matter - but, to a counter intuitively large degree, a faulty methodology.

As the renowned anti-psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, of the State University of New York, notes in his article "The Lying Truths of Psychiatry", mental health scholars, regardless of academic predilection, infer the etiology of mental disorders from the success or failure of treatment modalities.

This form of "reverse engineering" of scientific models is not unknown in other fields of science, nor is it unacceptable if the experiments meet the criteria of the scientific method. The theory must be all-inclusive (anamnetic), consistent, falsifiable, logically compatible, monovalent, and parsimonious. Psychological "theories" - even the "medical" ones (the role of serotonin and dopamine in mood disorders, for instance) - are usually none of these things.

The outcome is a bewildering array of ever-shifting mental health "diagnoses" expressly centred around Western civilisation and its standards (example: the ethical objection to suicide). Neurosis, a historically fundamental "condition" vanished after 1980. Homosexuality, according to the American Psychiatric Association, was a pathology prior to 1973. Seven years later, narcissism was declared a "personality disorder", almost seven decades after it was first described by Freud.

Szasz is the father of the "anti psychiatry" movement and this is his best book - a riveting, mind boggling,scholarly read. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".

Rating:
Summary: The Myth Revisited
Review: Dr. Szasz'definitive work should be revisited by all mental health professionals in this new era of "managed care" and its resultant "new mental health system". Although I don't agree with everything that Dr. Szasz claimed in his groundbreaking book, it seems to me that those who considered him a quack and continued the medical model of mental illness for the last 4+ decades have not proven him wrong. We have miserably failed the "mentally ill", "mentally disordered", people with "problems in living", or whatever term one uses these days. The mental health system and its providers these days use the excuse of managed care to explain its failures, but would be better advised to read or reread Dr. Szasz's forewarning of 40 years ago. It is time to rethink the problem, and a good place to start is with the "Myth of Mental Illness"-before the death of the mental health system is upon us.

Rating:
Summary: The Myth Revisited
Review: Dr. Szasz'definitive work should be revisited by all mental health professionals in this new era of "managed care" and its resultant "new mental health system". Although I don't agree with everything that Dr. Szasz claimed in his groundbreaking book, it seems to me that those who considered him a quack and continued the medical model of mental illness for the last 4+ decades have not proven him wrong. We have miserably failed the "mentally ill", "mentally disordered", people with "problems in living", or whatever term one uses these days. The mental health system and its providers these days use the excuse of managed care to explain its failures, but would be better advised to read or reread Dr. Szasz's forewarning of 40 years ago. It is time to rethink the problem, and a good place to start is with the "Myth of Mental Illness"-before the death of the mental health system is upon us.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Most Important Books in Psychiatry and Philosophy
Review: I believe this is one of the most important books in the history of psychiatry. The book is ground-breaking and establishes a new parardigm and organizing concept for many "mind" disciplines. Dr Szasz's ideas are timeless, revolutionary and common sense - not to be contrued as a criticism. Indeed many revolutionary ideas are simple and obvious and I think that is exactly why this book and Dr Szasz must be taken seriously. I am speaking behind the times when I say this because the book is nearly 40 years on the market. However Dr Szasz is as relevant today as ever. Institutionalized persecution of "different" behaviours has evolved beyond the ridiculous to the absurd. Dr Szasz's characterization of this as a "war on personal responsibility" is important from a medical and a moral perspective, as a challenge to the popular notions of "inner child", the gowing "victim" industry (e.g. gambling and shopping "addictions", among many many more) and similiar conceptual garabage.

The Myth of Mental Illness creates for the reader a reference point for cross diciplinary thinking in sociology, linguistics, philosophy of mind and science, psychology, history and or course medicine. The concepts are true to human beings as self-responsible moral agents and consistent with the North American work-ethic. Dr Szasz is commended for his insight and understanding of a pyschiatric industry gone mad. The book should be part of Amazon's "Well Worth Reading" displays.

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Summary: Meet more people, read more books.
Review: I have actually been through roughly the equivalent of Jungian analysis, so that I am no longer seeking those things like self-esteem and fulfillment that the ads promise, so I know already first that there is such a thing that can be called "mental illness" and that the Freudian method of talk therapy in dealing with it works. And I already know that the "medical model" is inappropriate. The person has a problem that the child's mind was unable to cope with. The problem goes away when the patient solves it, not the doctor, as opposed to "medical" cures where the doctor does the work and the patient is only a piece of meat. Thomas Szasz has been credited with brilliantly refuting the medical model. I acknowledge that Thomas Szasz is brilliant, not in disproving what I already know from experience (he presents no studies and not even a coherent argument), but in obfuscating the issue. Instead of shedding light upon the subject, he sheds darkness upon it and immerses it in confusion. It is what we used to call at the time (1961) a "snow job." I urge all intelligent persons to buy this book and parse each sentence as I have and prove to themselves the accuracy of what I am saying.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best read but a real eye-opener.
Review: I really liked this book. I first heard of it when I listened to a radio interview of Dr. Szasz in San Francisco in the late '90's. Intrigued with his claims I tried to check the book out of the library but it wasn't available locally and so had to be obtained from quite far away. After reading it, I was amazed that this book was not readily available in most libraries.

If you are trying to decide whether or not to purchase this book by reading these reviews (and a few of them are much, much better at analysis than I could ever be), you might want to do what I often do with controversial works. First, I take a look at the star counts and see how polarized they are. As of the time of this writing, only one out of sixteen reviews was other than a one or a five star rating and that one was rather academic. This polarization usually indicates to me that the work is both loved and hated and unsupported by middlin' opinions.

You might also want to take a close look at at the "personal" remarks made by the one star supporters to see if there is a common thread that runs throughout. In this case, many of these reviewers are/were convinced of their own mental difficulties.

But, what did I think of the book? I was facinated by the subject matter but was not very impressed with the writing as I found it a little difficult. But, I slog through even the most difficult books if I think there is a gem to be mined and this book is a real haul. (This is why I love Chesterton but hate his writing.) A comment George MacDonald made that could have been said about Szasz's book is "Truth is truth, whether from the lips of Balam or of Christ." I think Szasz is on to something but really doesn't have the whole picture of the human condition in focus. As far as I can discern, he denies the existence of the Spiritual realm and hence would not consider that people could be oppressed from without by bonafide demons. When Christ sent out his diciples to proclaim the Gospel (the first time), he gave them authority over two things: physical illnesses and demons. I already agree with Szasz about the former. He should look into the latter and revise his book accordingly.

I shall now have to read his other books.

Rating:
Summary: It Would Be Nice If True; But This Is Wrong and Dangerous
Review: It would be nice if Szasz's opinions about mental illness were true; just it would be nice if cancer didn't exist or poverty could be wised away. It would also be nice if people could hold opinions like his (let alone write books about them) without doing incalculable damage. Sadly, neither of these dreams is possible, and Szasz's book is both wrong and dangerous. As another reviewer pointed out, this is the sort of thing one is tempted to believe when one is young and seeking simple answers to complex problems.

Szasz's makes some valid points about the problems with the diagnoses of mental illness and about the psychiatric profession in general, but his views on the underlying nature of mental illness (a "mythological explanation of human wickedness") are just false. If you find yourself believing them, I urge you to actually spend some time with someone who has been diagnosed with a mental illness or to read one of the many more useful critiques psychiatry (such as Sydney Walker's 'A Dose of Sanity', which also provides a good survey of dangerous and ill-informed views like Szasz's).

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Summary: HuH?
Review: This amazingly poorly informed man thinks psycotic indivudals who hear voices are engaging in "lifestyle choices". Szasz then goes on to inform us because behavior isn't an organ, mental illness isn't an illness. OH, seeing isn't an organ so blindness isn't a disease. I'm certainly glad this man wasn't around when I was a teenager defending my right to comit suicde based on my mood disorder. I can't imagine a more irresponisble book will be written. Thomas szasz is to mental health what duane gish is to biology.

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Summary: Most important critique of psychiatry ever published
Review: This is the seminal work by the great Thomas Szasz, psychiatry's most important critic. Szasz ranks with Hayek, Mill, and Madison as one of the greatest proponents of liberty. No educated person should be unfamiliar with his writings.

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Summary: "The Myth of Mental Illness" is not Szasz's magnum opus.
Review: Though this book might be of paramount importance for those who desire to find an antithetical position to the "Doctors for the pathologizing of human behavior," I think it a terrible mistake to read this book with the assumption that understanding Szasz will be the result. Written early in his career, this book, like Beethoven's early symphonies, deserves not the attention it receives for the titilating title. I believe the influence of Karl Kraus caused the about face demonstrated by "The Myth of Psychotherapy" from the position outlined in "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis," both books he published later. For those that desire to find a summation of Szasz in one volume, I would recommend "Insanity."