QUOTE(Malleus @ Tue 10th November 2009, 5:36pm)
I suggest Milton that you take some time out to at least peruse Thomas Szatz's book, because you're quite clearly completely unaware of the anti-psychiatry movement. You could always start at
The Myth of Mental Illness.
I'm well aware of the book and read it years ago. Szasz reminds me of those people who refuse to believe that HIV causes AIDS or that cigarettes cause cancer. How do you PROVE it to them? Turns out you can't. It's almost impossible to prove a causal relation to somebody who refuses to believe it, if you can't do the demo where you deliberately cause the effect. As here. Szasz gets rid of all mental diseases by refusing to recognize them. I can do the same with all physical diseases as well, for Szasz is quite wrong that only mental disease require a participatory judgement to be recognized. Recognition of all pathology requires a judgement. Consider the problem of a veterinarian at a zoo. How do you know which animals are ill? One solution is simply to decide that none of them are, no matter what they do and how they look. There you go. (IMG:
smilys0b23ax56/default/ermm.gif) Even if they die, nobody claimed zoo animals are immortal, did they?
Of course, no zoo will pay you to be that kind of a vet. And nobody would pay Szasz to be that kind of a shrink. It's not a very helpful attitude.