The document summarizes the views of Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist who argued that mental illness is a myth. Some of his main arguments were that mental illnesses are not real diseases because they lack physical lesions; involuntary treatment and detention in psychiatric hospitals should be abolished; and the insanity defense should be eliminated. Szasz believed that behaviors labeled as mental illnesses are really problems of living that individuals should have the right to engage in without state interference. The document also provides criticism of Szasz's views, noting that current research supports genetic and biological factors in conditions like schizophrenia. It lists some of Szasz's influential books on topics like suicide, drug use, and the power of the psychiatric profession.

1. UNIT 6 SYMPOSIUM
DR.V.MURUGAVEL
INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH

2. -David cooper
"'MAD' BEHAVIOUR IS TO BE
CONTAINED, INCORPORATED IN AND
DIFFUSED THOUGH THE WHOLE
SOCIETY AS A SUBVERSIVE SOURCE OF
CREATIVITY, SPONTANEITY, NOT
'DISEASE'". THIS STATE OF
NONPSYCHIATRY
WITHOUT MENTAL ILLNESS OR
PSYCHIATRY COULD ONLY BE REACHED
IN A TRANSFORMED, GENUINELY
SOCIALIST
SOCIETY.

3. THEY
DON’T
EXIST
THEY ARE
REACTIONS
TO LIFE
STRESSES
THOMAS SZASZ,
SOCIAL LABELLING
THEORISTS
R.D.LAING,
FOCAULT
MENTAL ILLNESS

4. THOMAS STEPHEN SZASZ
(1920-2012)

5.  Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association &
Member of the American Psychoanalytic
Association
 Professor of psychiatry at the State University of New
York
 In 1969, Szasz & Church of Scientology co founded
the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) to
oppose involuntary psychiatric treatments
 In 1971, he found the American Association for the
Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization
(AAAIMH).

6.  The term Mental illness is a myth
 Abolishing Insanity defence &
Involuntary hospitalization
 Presumption of competence
 Separation of psychiatry & the State
 Patient’s are malingerers
 Right to Die
 Right to use drugs
HIS MAIN ARGUMENTS WERE…

7. "The myth of mental illness“
 Disease is defined as a physical lesion.
 Hence using the term 'mental illness' is a
logical and semantic error.
 The reason the metaphor of mental illness is
literalised by postulating it has a physical
basis is so that it can serve as a justification
for psychiatric interventions and institutions.

8. Abolition of involuntary mental
hospitalisation
 Involuntary treatment is violence against
humanity.
 Detention should only take place under the
criminal justice system.

9. Abolition of the insanity defence
Excusing a person of responsibility for an
otherwise criminal act on the basis of
inability to form conscious intent is an act of
legal mercy masquerading as an act of
medical science."

10.  disapproved actions, thoughts, and emotions are
repressed through pseudomedical(Psychiatric)
interventions….
 Thus suicide, unconventional religious beliefs,
unhappiness, anxiety, shyness, sexual
promiscuity, shoplifting, gambling, overeating,
smoking, and illegal drug use are all considered
symptoms or illnesses that need to be cured.
From the NANNY state to the
THERAPEUTIC state

11. Separation of psychiatry and
the state.
The state should not interfere with
mental health practice, which ought to
be an individual voluntary activity.

12. He said that ″patients have something
personally significant to communicate but
unable to express this via conventional means
they resort to illness imitation behaviour which
psychiatrists and psychologists have
misguidedly interpreted as the signs/symptoms
of mental illness”.
PATIENT’S AS MALINGERERS…

13. Szasz argued that individuals should be able
to choose when to die without interference
from medicine or the state, just as they are
able to choose when to conceive without
outside interference.
He considered suicide to be among the most
fundamental rights, but he opposed State
sanctioned euthanasia.
SUICIDE ,A FREEDOM OF CHOICE

14. Drug addiction is a social habit not a disease
Supports a drug free market
He compares persecution of the drug using
minority by the state to persecution of Jews
by the Nazis.
RIGHT TO USE DRUGS

15.  Szasz conceived disease exclusively in terms of
“morphology“.
 Szasz's criticism of syndrome based diagnoses.
 Increasing knowledge on genetics,biochemistry, and
current research results on the etiology of mental
illness.
 why and how—eg.schizophrenia manifests a cyclical
natural history with a common set of symptoms in
1% of the population worldwide.
 Szasz's view of psychiatry as a profession that is
concerned only with maintaining or increasing its
power.
CRITICISM AGAINST SZASZ ARGUMENTS

16. He wrote around 35 books.
Few of them are..
 The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory
of Personal Conduct
 Fatal Freedom: The Ethics and Politics of Suicide
 Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America
 My Madness Saved Me: The Madness and Marriage
of Virginia Woolf
 The Age of Madness: A History of Involuntary Mental
Hospitalization
 Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of
Psychiatry,..etc.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

17. THANK YOU