Mental Disorder as an Illness: Szasz Revisited

Abstract

Thomas Szasz was a psychiatrist with great intellectual sagacity, consistent and unwavering with his concept of mental illness. He famously argues that mental illness is a myth. If Szasz's arguments are prima facie propositions and mental health interventions are considered myth-making endeavors, psychopharmacological engagement during treatment might be the most unjustified coercion of this generation. For Szasz, mental disorders are in the realm of psycho-social-ethical-legal. He views the existing treatment model of mental illness as an ideological validation of coercion. This tension in his findings stems from two angles, the exclusion of bodily illness dynamics that is currently unknown and extreme activities that are not considered illnesses. Call this the value-ladenness of the mental disorder proposition. I maintain that this proposition fails to show the polythetic nature of mental disorders. Specifically, I aver that the value-ladenness proposition on which his theory is predicated requires that we deny the emergent anatomical-physiological factual norms that plausibly can exist, namely knowledge of brain structures and functions in neuroscience. I claim that such knowledge can emerge. Howbeit, Szasz's framework is partially valid when he admits the psychosocial features of mental disorders due to the value-ladenness of mental disorders. I will consolidate this partial validity with a position accordant with realist philosophy drawing from Foucault, Fulford, and Kendell solidified by the evidence of cognitive-affective science within the domain of contemporary ampliative understanding of mental conditions to answer the questions raised by Szasz's proposition.