Mark and Frank,
I think the concept of what constitutes a mental disorder is a fascinating and important question (although I hope we stay on the topic of human difference—perhaps this can be an asterisk for future exporation?).
It was the focus of one of my first theory papers, published prior to my unified theory work in 2002. The justification of mental disorder and disease is crucial to our identity.
Szasz said some very important things. He also “over shot” in that, yes, people actually do go crazy. Their perceptual-affect systems breakdown and they hallucinate and their justification systems go haywire and they form delusions. A profound thought disorder
is as evident of a broken mind as a heart attack. If someone grabbed their chest, screamed in pain and died, we would say something was wrong with them, even if we found no lesions in their heart.
All that said, the majority of what we call mental illnesses, the neurotic conditions, are by and large problems in living and coping that lead to clinically significant levels of distress. They are mental-behavioral problems, not diseases
in the traditional medicine sense. Some blogs on this issue:
What is a Mental
Disorder?
Five Broad Models of
Mental Illness
Mental Disorders Vs Diseases
This one is on Szasz:
Is Psychiatry
the Science of Lies?
Best,
Gregg
-----Original Message-----
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mark Stahlman
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2018 8:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: easy pieces
Frank:
Very interesting -- thanks . . . !!
As you know, Ernest Becker was "mentored" by Thomas Szasz, an important figure in the "anti-psychiatry" movement of the 1960s.
Just as we are now in another "counter-culture," Szasz was in the middle of his (along with some of the rest of us.) The last time this happened, RADIO psychology -- particularly the medical version -- came
under attack by the *new* techno-paradigm TELEVISION types.
Psychiatry lost.
His 1961 "The Myth of Mental Illness" and 1970 "The Manufacture of
Madness" accompanied Michel Foucault's 1961 "History of Madness" &c.
One of the components which fed all this was the use of LSD -- beginning and becoming widespread in psychotherapy in the 1950s and then spread by the anti-psychiatrists in the 1960s, including after it became illegal -- which was viewed
by some as "mimicking" psychosis, while others saw it as opening the "Doors of Perception." How's that for "counter" views (reminding us of the recent "Entropic Brain" post by Gregg) . . . !!
Wikipedia notes --
"Szasz argued throughout his career that mental illness is a metaphor for human problems in living, and that mental illnesses are not "illnesses" in the sense that physical illnesses are; and that except for a few identifiable brain diseases,
there are "neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying DSM diagnoses."
"Szasz maintained throughout his career that he was not anti-psychiatry but was rather anti-coercive psychiatry. He was a staunch opponent of civil commitment and involuntary psychiatric treatment but believed in, and practiced, psychiatry
and psychotherapy between consenting adults."
Yes, the closing of mental institutions was one of the results. As are at least some aspects of the increase in "mass killings" &c.
In the summer of 1967 (aka "The Summer of Love," when I was in Haight-Ashbury looking for some LSD), the Tavistock Institute held a conference at what was probably the peak of this movement -- called the "Dialectics of Liberation Congress"
(and published under the title "To Free a Generation") -- organized by David Cooper, their resident "anti-psychiatrist" (and a colleague of R.D. Laing, widely nominated to take over for Tim Leary, also a psychologist, as the LSD "guru.")
"Emergent cosmic reality" and "cosmic information exchange dynamism"
would likely have been phrases that would have been right at home there . . . <g>
Mark