Author Description
15 years & 12 books after The Myth of Mental Illness, the Wm Buckley of social relations continues his elegant & passionate assault on psychiatry, this time zeroing in on the most vulnerable syndrome in the medical library. "Schizophrenia is not a disease," Szasz insists, only a name that fake doctors (psychiatrists) give to misbehavers who annoy their families & misfits who can't "endure life with decency & dignity." This anti-Freudian no lesion-no illness formula is familiar, but genetic approaches to the subject--& all the recent, impressive statistics--are also rejected. Even R.D. Laing & the "anti-psychiatrists" (who've stolen much of Szasz' thunder) draw ridicule--for their idealization of insanity & for attempts to treat, however benignly, "so-called" schizophrenics. The undeniable problems with the schizophrenia diagnosis--vagueness, lack of etiology, institutional abuse--receive repeated emphasis, along with nightmarish reports of (primarily Soviet) political persecution masquerading as psychiatry. Disturbing stuff, but Szasz drowns the valid controversies in hyperbole ("the greatest scientific scandal of our scientific age") & tests our patience with labored therapy as slavery or arranged marriage, schizophrenia as the psychiatric faith's Eucharist. As always, the Szasz attack is relentlessly abstract (no case histories or current asylum data) & short on compassion, yet imbued with an odd eloquence that perhaps only tunnel-vision can achieve.--Kirkus
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
Thomas Szasz investigates the core question of whether schizophrenia constitutes a legitimate medical disease or a social label used to pathologize non-conformity. Szasz, a prominent critic of institutional psychiatry, argues that the diagnosis lacks a biological basis and functions primarily as a mechanism for social control. He rejects genetic and neurobiological explanations, positioning the psychiatric establishment as an entity that mislabels individuals who fail to meet societal standards of behavior.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- A critique of the diagnostic criteria and etiology of schizophrenia
- An analysis of the intersection between psychiatry and political persecution
- Philosophical arguments comparing psychiatric treatment to social institutions like slavery
Scope Limits
- The text lacks empirical case histories or contemporary asylum data
- The author does not engage with clinical or genetic research methodologies
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Critics and readers often note the highly abstract and polemical nature of the prose, which prioritizes rhetorical force over clinical evidence. Experts recognize this work as a significant, albeit controversial, contribution to the anti-psychiatry movement that challenges the foundational definitions of mental illness.
Page Count:
252
Publication Date:
1979-05-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
019217679X
ISBN-13:
9780192176790
Non-Fiction
Philosophy
Psychology
Sociology
Schizophrenia
Psychiatry