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

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"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."

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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.

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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/

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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.

Recovering From Psychiatry

www.recoveringfrompsychiatry.com

"Mental Illness" in "A Dictionary of Green Ideas" (1988).

Mental Illness
[c.1950]
A creation of professional psychiatrists from the mid-nineteenth century onwards to explain rebellious or "anti-social" behaviour, usually called "hysteria" until the 1950s and thought of as a primarily female "disorder". In the last twenty years many people have questioned the legitimacy of the label of mental illness, and have criticized the way that those given the label are treated as second-class human beings.
Green thinkers prefer to take mental health or mental wellness as their starting-point, rather than framing the issue within the conventional and limiting terms of mental illness, disease or handicap. Some humanistic psychologists use the term "mental distress": "Humanistic psychology does not attach very much importance to diagnostic categories, and does not see mental distress as a medical problem" (John Rowan, 1976).
Yet health care professionals, their patients and the public have invested so much in believing that mental illness does exist that a person's mind and body frequently oblige by presenting very convincing symptoms, further confusing the question of whether or not there is such a thing as mental illness.
"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. Moreover, the concept of mental illness also undermines the principle of personal responsibility, the ground on which all free political institutions rest. For the individual, the notion of mental illness precludes and inquiring attitude towards his [or her] conflicts which his [or her] symptoms at once conceal and reveal. For a society, it precludes regarding individuals as responsible persons and invites, instead, treating them as irresponsible patients." (Thomas Szasz, 1962).
"We must face the fact that much of what is called "mental illness" by the oppressive society is healthy and at least semi-rational rebellion against conformity, against submission to, or co-operation with, oppression. The "mental health systems" in our present societies are almost entirely instruments of oppression in spite of the good intentions and the basic humanness of the practitioners who act out their roles in the machinery. Mental health oppression is invoked and used to force submission, to enforce conformity, and to imprison and destroy rebels and non-conformists." (Harvey Jackins, 1983).
And of course it is still women who suffer the most, which is not unconnected with the fact that 86% of all US psychiatrists are men: "In the mental health field, as in most other arenas of social life, it is largely men who have the power to define reality - to name the problem....the typical male Expert is likely to construe the statistics that women are psychologically sicker than men. The numbers may be taken as evidence of the problem of female mental illness. But if we look closer, this way of defining the problem is itself part of the problem. For statistics also show that male doctors will diagnose women as neurotic or psychotic  twice as frequently as they do men with the same symptoms: Man as Expert simply sees women quite differently than he sees men." (Miriam Greenspan, 1983).

Entry in "A DICTIONARY OF GREEN IDEAS", JOHN BUTTON, 1988.

DIMID (Disbelief in Mental Illness Disorder)

DIMID (Disbelief in Mental Illness Disorder) is a liberating condition to have but it is also quite stigmatizing to have it in many contexts but especially amongst mental health professionals.

800th Anniversary of Magna Carta

The ideology of "mental illness" includes A CLEAR, FLAGRANT AND TOTAL BREACH of an old English legal principle of HABEAS CORPUS which has been a strong principle since
at least 1215 and Magna Carta.

This means "the body must be had or present" at a legal trial before a person can be detained by the State.

The Mental Health Act contradicts this principle for no good reason and it is open to abuse.

Detention by the state without a trial is allowed for by the Mental Health Act and this dishonours what was achieved at Magna Carta.

The Mental Health Acts should simply be repealed as unnecessary and inhumane and as insults to our legal traditions.

It is a good thing that someone is saying this as we rightly celebrate the 800th Anniversary of Magna Carta.

More people need to say it.

25 Good Reasons Why Psychiatry Must Be Abolished

25 Good Reasons Why Psychiatry Must Be Abolished

1. Because psychiatrists frequently cause harm, permanent disabilities, death - death of the body-mind-spirit.

2. Because psychiatrists frequently violate the Hippocratic Oath which orders all physicians "First Do No Harm."

3. Because psychiatrists patronize and disempower people, especially their patients.

4. Because psychiatry is not a medical science.

5. Because psychiatry is quackery, a pseudo-science which lacks independent diagnostic tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for "schizophrenia" and all other types of alleged "mental illness" or "mental disorder".

6. Because psychiatrists can not accurately and reliably predict dangerousness, violence, or any other type of human behaviour, yet make such claims as "expert witnesses", and with the media promote the "dangerous mental patient" myth/stereotype.

7. Because psychiatrists have caused a worldwide epidemic of brain damage by promoting and prescribing brain-disabling treatments such as the neuroleptics, antidepressants, electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroshock), and psychosurgery (lobotomy).

8. Because psychiatrists manufacture hundreds of "mental disorders" classified in its bible called "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (a modern witch-hunting manual); such "mental disorders" and "symptoms" are in fact negative, class-and-culturally-biased moral judgments for dissident ways of coping with personal problems and alternative ways of perceiving, interpreting or being in the world.

9. Because psychiatrists, blinded by their medical model bias, fraudulently pathologize and label people's serious life or existential crises as "symptoms" of "mental illness" or "mental disorder" such as "schizophrenia","bipolar affective disorder", and "personality disorder".

10. Because psychiatrists compound this fraud by falsely claiming, without scientific proof, that these "mental disorders" are caused by a "biochemical imbalance" in the brain, genetic factors or "genetic predispositions", despite the fact that there are no genetic factors in "mental illness".

11. Because psychiatrists frequently misinform their patients, families and the public by claiming that brain-disabling procedures such as the neurotoxins (e.g.,"antipsychotic medication" and "antidepressasnts"), electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroconvulsive therapy/"ECT"), psychosurgery (lobotomy) and other behaviour modification-mind control procedures are "safe, effective and lifesaving". The exact opposite is tragically true.

12. Because psychiatrists routinely deceive or lie to patients, prisoners, their families, and the public.

13. Because psychiatrists routinely and willfully violate the medical-ethical principle of "informed consent" by misinforming or not informing their patients about the numerous toxic, disabling and frequently permanent effects of the neuroleptics such as memory loss, tardive dyskinesia, tardive psychosis, parkinsonism, dementia (all signs of brain damage), and death.

14. Because psychiatrists routinely threaten, intimidate or coerce many patients - particularly women, children, the elderly, and prisoners - into consenting to health-threatening/brain-damaging "treatment" such as the antidepressants, neuroleptics, electroconvulsive brainwashing, and hi-risk experiments.

15. Because psychiatrists frequently fail to fully inform psychiatric inmates and prisoners about existing safe and humane, non-medical alternatives in the community such as survivor-controlled crisis centres, drop-ins, self-help or advocacy groups, diet, massage, wholistic medicine, affordable supportive housing, and jobs.

16. Because psychiatrists are sexist in frequently stereotyping women in crisis as "hysterical" or "over-emotional", blaming women whenever they voice real complaints and assertively express their feelings and emotions, prescribing massive doses of tranquilizers and antidrepressants to disproportionately large numbers of women, and in sexually assaulting women in their offices and institutions.

17. Because psychiatrists, particularly white male psychiatrists, are homophobic - the American Psychiatric Association (APA) once labelled homosexuality as a "mental illness" or "mental disorder" - and have used forced electroshock on lesbians, trying to coerce them into adopting a heterosexual life style.

18. Because psychiatrists are ageist in prescribing tranquilizers, antidepressants ("medication") and electroconvulsive brainwashing for disproportionately large numbers of elderly people - a form of elder abuse.

19. Because psychiatrists are racist in disproportionately incarcerating and drugging people of African descent, aboringal people, other people of colour and labelling them "psychotic" or "schizophrenic".

20. Because psychiatrists routinely violate people's civil rights, human rights and constitutional rights such as imprisoning innocent people without court trial or public hearing ("involuntary commitment"), and subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishments or tortures such as forced drugging, electroconvulsive brainwashing, psychosurgery, solitary confinement, "chemical restraints", and 4-point or 5-point restraints.

21. Because psychiatrists masterminded the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people including disabled children, the elderly and psychiatric patients during The Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and "selected" hundreds of thousands of concentration camp prisoners for death ("T-4 euthanasia" program) - historical facts still missing in psychiatric textbooks and histories.

22. Because psychiatrists have willingly participated in and administered mind-control experiments in the United States and Canada since the early 1950s - its chief targets have been poor patients, women, dissidents and prisoners.

23. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is based on the 3 Fs: Fear, Fraud,and Force.

24. Because psychiatry is a form of social control or punishment - not treatment.

25. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is fascist - a direct threat to democracy, human rights and life.