Four Assumptive Worlds of Psychopathy V: The World of Mental Illness
Furthermore, it seems to be world that can still offer not only cures, but also destructive classifications and resultant miscalculations regarding prognosis and treatment. Szasz has offered us a compelling description of the crippling impact which the social construction of “illness” can have on individual people and a society. I close this essay with a final quote from Szasz (1974, p 262): “The notion of a person ‘having a mental illness’ is scientifically crippling. It provides professional assent to a popular rationalization—namely that problems in living experienced and expressed in terms of so-called psychiatric symptoms are basically similar to bodily diseases. For a society, it precludes regarding individuals as responsible persons and invites, instead, treating them as irresponsible patients.”
_______________
References
Bergquist, William, Suzan Guest and Terrence Rooney (2004) Who is Wounding the Healers. Sacramento, CA: Pacific Soundings Press.
Szasz, Thomas (1974)The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. New York: Harper & Row.
Leave a Reply