Mental health topic 3 = Szasz

Question 1

What is the form of this research?

Answer 1

Essay + book titled ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’
Revisited 50 years later

Question 2

What is mental illness according to Szasz?

Answer 2

A metaphor, judgments society made about behaviour that is socially unacceptable/disturbing
The ‘symptoms’ of mental illness are just undiagnosed physical illness

Question 3

What did Szasz claim about the US mental health system?

Answer 3

Politicised: holders of political power settled the question of what mental illness is
Thus, politicisation used to discredit alternatives to medical model
Medicalised: DSM means diagnosis —-> treatment

Question 4

What did Szasz claim about ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’?

Answer 4

Should not be used as a defence
As this makes the claim all people are inherently good so bad actions only occur due to mental illness limits human freedom

Question 5

What did Szasz claim about human liberty?

Answer 5

People denied accountability for wrong doing
People denied liberty from dehumanisation
Due to mental health system - belief wrong doing only occurs due to mental illness

Question 6

What did Szasz claim about psychiatrists?

Answer 6

Jailers who imprison the ‘mentally ill’ in a system that denies right to seek, accept and deny medical diagnosis and treatment
They have too much power, have political control of individual

Question 7

3 final conclusions of Szasz

Answer 7

Medical model violates human liberty
Medicalisation + politicisation has lead to dehumanised
model of care where the disorder is treated, not the person
Mental illness as defined by DSM 5 is a fiction