Amazing Anti-Psychiatry Designs!

Amazing UK Anti-Psychiatry site


www.auntiepsychiatry.com

World Szasz Day

October 10th should be World Szasz Day. Such is his importance as a thinker.

October 10th - World Mental Health Day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Mental_Health_Day

"Mental Illness" is a CATEGORY ERROR

The English philosopher Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) introduced the concept of the CATEGORY ERROR.

[Category Error:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake]

He was what is known as an ordinary language philosopher, and an example of twentieth century philosophy's emphasis on language.

A "category error" as according to Ryle is a semantic or ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category.

I believe that the whole concept of "mental illness" is quite simply just such a CATEGORY ERROR, as described by Ryle.

An illness simply cannot be included in - or combined with - the category "mental". It does not and cannot belong in this category. An illness can only be included in the category "physical". It's inclusion in the category "mental" can only  be metaphorical and not actual or literal. It is as simple as that. An illness cannot be mental - it can only be physical.

From this category error oceans of suffering, folly and deceit have been engendered.

Given that humans are rational and capable of behaving reasonably - it is to be hoped that this error can be rectified and its terrible results corrected.

Psychiatry is the problem, not people.

I have a problem with Peter Breggin's views.
He believes in "mental illness" and calls himself a "psychiatrist".

I have a problem with Joanna Moncrieff's views.
She believes in "mental illness" and calls herself a "psychiatrist".

I am not just critical of psychiatry, I am against it.
Though of course I am very much in agreement with what Peter Breggin in the USA and Joanna Moncrieff in the UK are saying, and I am very glad they are there.
And I am very glad that the Critical Psychiatry tendency exists!
Their highly sceptical views on psychiatric drugs particularly are an absolutely vital corrective to conventional psychiatry.

What Breggin in the USA and Moncrieff in the UK - and those like them in the Critical Psychiatry movement - fail to fully realize is that Psychiatry is the problem, not people.

If "mental illness" is reconfigured as "problems in living", then obviously everyone encounters problems in living to a certain point. That's a point they seem to miss.

Joanna Moncrieff, for example, has spoken of "this complex thing called madness".
In my opinion, the matter is simple - there is no such thing as madness.

Pointing out the obvious

Anti-Psychiatry is a very necessary term.

"...the imbecillic term "antipsychiatry""

Thomas Szasz.

I think he would perhaps have been better off replacing "antipsychiatry" with "antipsychiatrist" in this phrase!

"As a result of the antipsychiatrists's self-seeking sloganeering, psychiatrists can now do what no other members of a medical specialty can do: they can dismiss critics of any aspect of accepted psychiatric practice by labeling them "antipsychiatrists."

The obstetrician who eschews abortion on demand is not stigmatized as an "antiobstetrician."
The surgeon who eschews transsexual operations is not dismissed as an "antisurgeon.""

Thomas Szasz.

Perhaps in a sense it is a silly term. As a discipline called "ANTI-GEOLOGY" would be.
Or better "ANTI-GEOLOGIST"! Geology is a recognized and valid science.
Pyschiatry is a pseudo-science and a crime.

Hence I don't believe that the term "anti-psychiatry" is "imbecillic". If I were to say that I am "anti-astrology" or "anti-alchemy" I do not believe these would be imbecilic terms either. Especially if astrology or alchemy were still officially parts of science.

Because Psychiatry cannot be a medical discipline - and in many other senses - I think that "anti-psychiatry" is a very acceptable term. In fact, I believe that it is an extremely necessary term. Among the most necessary in history.

It is important to note that like almost all terms in this area of verbal abuse "imbecile" or "imbecilic" has no scientific meaning whatsoever. It may supposedly have done in origin. But it simply a term of abuse now.
"Cretin" meant "Christian" in origin. "Idiot" is a term of abuse and nothing more; with an obscure pseudo-scientific origin as so many terms of abuse have. Most terms denoting so-called "mental illness" are essentially nothing but terms of abuse anyway. They are the same thing, as Szasz himself pointed out

---------------------------------------

"While many antipsychiatrists pay lip service to rejecting the "medical model" of psychiatry, they continue to conceptualize certain human problems and efforts to resolve them in medical terms and, even more importantly, do not categorically reject "therapeutic" coercion and excuse-making."

Thomas Szasz.

This ain't necessarily so. There is no reason why opposition to psychiatry has to be involved with the practices described in this quote, as Szasz must have known.

I am very much opposed to "Psychiatry" and hence I am ANTI-PSYCHIATRY (adj.).
As everyone of conscience should be.

Since psychiatry is a bogus endeavour, the profession and medical speciality should simply be abolished. It has no use and no future.

That's why I am anti-psychiatry.

Given the crimes of psychiatry, regardless of the supposed crimes of those who may have invented or used the term "anti-psychiatry", the term "anti-psychiatry" has a place I believe.
Is "anti-slavery" or "anti-racism" an imbecilic term? Of course not.
Psychiatry is absolutely comparable to slavery and racism. Intrinsically so.

I think the title of one of Szasz's recent books - "Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared" - is unfortunate and could engender misunderstandings.

Why didn't Szasz write a book entitled "Scientology: Cultishness Squared"?
He may as well have done - for all the relevance that the work "Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared" had to anything at all. It seems to mainly describe the defects of "antipsychiatrists" in quite an arbitrary way. Their practices however had nothing necessarily to do with opposition to psychiatry.

The execrable practices and ideology of Scientology have nothing to do with Szasz of course - yet the two have been lumped together by association. Quite wrongly. For me anti-psychiatry merely means opposition to psychiatry and nothing more. By the term "anti-psychiatry" I do not denote the practices of Cooper or Laing or any specific individual. In this sense "Antipsychiatry" has nothing to do with opposition to psychiatry! In the same way, Szasz obviously has nothing to do with Scientology!

If "antipsychiatry" is the label we give this specific tendency and its objectionable practices then I think this is a misappropriation of the term. It can of course still mean what it seems to mean prima facie - i.e. opposition to psychiatry!

By "antipsychiatry" I personally do not mean the 1960s movement - if such a thing existed - I mean simply opposition to psychiatry!

To be frank, "Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared" was, I believe, possibly to a point a strategic book; and essentially a lapse for many reasons, that detracts from his otherwise very important, impeccable and excellent oeuvre!

As the son of Laing himself has pointed out on in a brief review of the book on amazon.com, Szasz had a strong dislike of Laing and his work and activities in particular.
Possibly this was quite justified. but I think this dislike was one origin of the conceptual lapse that I think this book represents.

The following is a description of Szasz's book "Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared.":

"More than fifty years ago, Thomas Szasz showed that the concept of mental illness - a disease of the mind - is an oxymoron, a metaphor, a myth. Disease, in the medical sense, affects only the body. He also demonstrated that civil commitment and the insanity defense, the paradigmatic practices of psychiatry, are incompatible with the political values of personal responsibility and individual liberty. The psychiatric establishment's rejection of Szasz's critique posed no danger to his work: its defense of coercions and excuses as ""therapy"" supported his argument regarding the metaphorical nature of mental illness and the transparent immorality of brutal psychiatric control masquerading as humane medical care. 

In the late 1960s, the launching of the so-called antipsychiatry movement vitiated Szasz's effort to present a precisely formulated conceptual and political critique of the medical identity of psychiatry and of psychiatric coercions and excuses. Led by the Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, the antipsychiatrists used the term to attract attention to themselves and deflect attention from what they did, which included coercions and excuses based on psychiatric principles and power. For this reason, Szasz rejected, and continues to reject, psychiatry and antipsychiatry with equal vigor.

Subsuming his work under the rubric of antipsychiatry betrays and negates it just as surely and effectively as subsuming it under the rubric of psychiatry. In ""Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared"", Szasz powerfully argues that his writings belong to neither psychiatry nor antipsychiatry. They stem from conceptual analysis, social-political criticism, and common sense."

------------------------------------------------

I have read the entire work described. I agree with all of this summary, but, as I say, I have some reservations about the work.

For example was there ever really such a thing as the "antipsychiatry movement" that was "launched" in the 1960s? Is there such a thing now? There certainly isn't such a movement now that believes in psychiatric coercion.

I certainly do not seek to subsume Szasz's ideas within the ideology or rubric of "antipsychiatry"/"antipsychiatry"/"Anti-Psychiatry"!

To summarize, whilst I go all the way with Szasz in criticizing and condemning Laing and others in what got labelled the "antipsychiatry movement" and their coercive practices, I do think that the term "antipsychiatry" is quite necessary.

Szasz criticizes "antipsychiatry" more cogently in his excellent book "Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry". I accept everything he says in this book about what has been given the label "antipsychiatry". But I still think the term "antipsychiatry" is needed to simply mean what it seems to mean - opposition to psychiatry.

I think psychiatry needs to be totally abolished, and all of its practices discredited and discontinued.
It needs to be relegated to the ranks of pseudo-science like astrology and alchemy have been.
People would of course still be free to engage voluntarily in psychiatric ideology and some current psychiatric practices but not as part of science or medicine and only on a fully mutually voluntary basis.

Szasz's emphasis was on abolishing all coercion from psychiatry and I fully agree with this.
I would perhaps go further in wishing to see psychiatry abolished as a medical discipline.
I cannot help but think that it is not entirely irrelevant to this discussion that Szasz himself was officially a psychiatrist.

I do think however that some psychiatric practices like ECT and some types of neurosurgery (better classed as mutilation) should be totally abolished, illegalized and prohibited - and not even available on a voluntary consensual basis.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For an even better discussion of some of the points raised here please see the following article by the excellent Dr. Bonnie Burstow - a new heroine of mine. I agree with almost every word and I may even drop the hyphen!

Antipsychiatry - say what? by Bonnie Burstow.
https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/06/antipsychiatry-say-what/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Szasz's politics

A post on Szasz's politics.

I would say that describing Szasz as "right-wing" is perhaps slightly misleading.
He was certainly a libertarian and defending liberty was certainly the major basis of his thinking.
In terms of his economic views he was perhaps on the right - there is evidence of this.
But the major emphasis of his thinking - as I say - was libertarian.

If believing in freedom is not regarded as left-wing then we can have little hope for the left.
I personally regard myself as very much on the left. I would like to describe myself personally
as something like a "libertarian socialist". Noam Chomsky also describes himself as a "libertarian socialist."

I very much doubt that Szasz would ever have described himself as any kind of socialist,
and he was suspicious of mass social movements and large collectivities in general.
He seems to have regarded Freud as wanting to found such a mass movement. He was sceptical of Marxism and was I think an admirer of Karl Popper. I also personally am very much a supporter of the views of Karl Popper, both in the philosophy of science and in politics. Popper is not necessarily
regarded as being on the right. He could possibly be described as a reformist socialist.
[Karl Popper  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper]

I think that Szasz was opposed to state provision of any kind of medicine - not
just state-backed and state-provided psychiatry. I personally am not opposed to the
collective provision of health care, as we have here in the U.K. Medical care is
undoubtedly a human right. But, like Szasz, I am in favour of the full separation
 of psychiatry and the state. I do not regard psychiatry as being a legitimate part
 of medicine.

Szasz was in favour of full legalization of drugs and full legalization of prostitution.
Neither position is usually regarded as "right-wing"!

Going in the other direction, as far as I am aware, Chomsky has so far been totally
silent about the work of Szasz.

Chomsky has of course written on psychology, and has been deeply critical of
behaviourism, in particular the thinking of Skinner. Unsurprisingly, Szasz was also strongly against behaviourism.

It is perfectly possible to attempt some kind of "marriage" of the philosophical,
social and political views of Chomsky with those of Szasz - and it is something
that I attempt to achieve. I think they have a great deal in common.
Both thinkers share independence, controversy, thoroughness, indefatigability and courage.
But what the two thinkers undoubtedly most share in common is a deep commitment to and belief
 in human freedom.