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(by
DW
Sue and D Sue
) of psychiatric diagnosis and
hospitalization
were forcefully pointed out over 20 years ago by Laing(1967,
1969) and Szasz (1970, 1971). Laing believes that
individual
madness is but a reflection of the madness of society
. He
describes schizophrenic breakdowns as desperate strategies by
people to liberate themselves from a "false self' used
to maintain behavioral normality in our society.
Attempts
to adjust the person back to the original normality (sick society)
are unethical
.
Szasz states this opinion even more strongly:
In my opinion,
mental illness is a myth
.
People we
label "mentally ill" are not sick
, and involuntary
mental hospitalization is not treatment. It is punishment ...
The fact that mental illness designates
a deviation from
an ethnical rule of conduct
, and that such rules vary widely,
explains why upper-middle-class psychiatrists can so easily
find evidence of "mental illness" in lower-class individuals;
and why so many prominent persons in the past fifty years or
so have been diagnosed by their enemies as suffering from some
types of insanity.
Barry Goldwater
was called a paranoid
schizophrenic ...
Woodrow Wilson
, a neurotic ...
Jesus
Christ
, according to two psychiatrists ... was a born degenerate
with a fixed delusion system. (Szasz, 1970, pp. 167-168)
Szasz sees the mental health professional as an inquisitor,
an agent of society exerting social control on those individuals
who deviate in thought
and behavior from the accepted norms of society
. Psychiatric
hospitalization is believed to be a form of
social control
for persons who annoy or disturb us. The label "mental
illness" may be seen as a political ploy used to control
those who are different, and counseling is used to
control,
brainwash, or reorient the identified victims to fit into society
.
(from
Counseling
the Culturally Different: Theory & Practice
, 2nd Ed.,
p 12
.)
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