The BBC report <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7207644.stm>
that the father of UK singer Amy Winehouse "admitted he asked for his
daughter to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act to help her stop
taking drugs ... [but] had been told she could not be sectioned because
she was not at risk of hurting herself." Mitch Winehouse is quoted as
saying "You might consider taking drugs is a danger to herself, but
unfortunately the authorities don't."

But Mr Winehouse then suggests that "unless she wants to do it of her
own accord, it's pointless... You can't lock the key and say, 'you can't
come out before you're better'. That's called abduction."

The BBC link to the story under the headline "Dad wants Winehouse
sectioned," yet both he and the BBC (not to mention the public at large)
seem oblivious to the contradictory nature of this situation. If only
psychiatrists were honest enough to admit that their profession is
scientifically fraudulent, then the political debate could begin.
Needless to say, suggesting that people ought to be detained and drugged
when there is nothing medically wrong with them is a more difficult task
than they would like to attempt. Sadly, I am not sure such arguments
would necessarily fail to win over the public, but it would be a start.
I hear that Dr Szasz has a book entitled "Psychiatry: the science of
lies" on the way, and so I eagerly await publication.

I well remember some critics of the (Szaszian) position I was discussing
responding along the lines of "but it's actually quite difficult for a
psychiatrist to detain a drug addict." Maybe so, but relative to what?
In any case, the Winehouse story is noteworthy not because it involves a
well-known singer, but because it captures perfectly the weak-willed
thinking that stretches across our entire society when it comes to the
issue of mental health and mental illness.

To be fair to Mitch, might it be the case that he once believed in the
morality of state psychiatry, but has since changed his mind (with the
BBC twisting his words in the hunt for a story, for example)? In which
case, is Mitch Winehouse a hero to the cause of
liberty-and-responsibility vis-a-vis psychiaty?(!!) If only...

Ted.



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