Have not gotten to 'The Medicalization of Everyday Life' yet, but
after reading the following in Szasz's latest, 'Psychiatry: The
Science of Lies,' I don't expect the trend to change any time soon:

'"White House Fact Sheet on Myths and Facts about Mental Illness"
(1999): "Research in the last decade proves that mental illnesses are
diagnosable disorders of the brain."

'President William Jefferson Clinton (1999): "Mental illness can be
accurately diagnosed, successfully treated, just as physical
illness." [It's now apparent that Clinton hadn't yet mastered "the
science of lies."]

'Tipper Gore, President Clinton's mental health adviser (1999): "One
of the most widely believed and most damaging myths is that mental
illness is not a physical disease. Nothing could be further from the
truth."

'Surgeon General David Satcher (1999): "Just as things go wrong with
the heart and kidneys and liver, so things go wrong with the brain."

'Nancy C. Andreasen, professor of psychiatry at the University of
Iowa (1997): "What we call 'mind' is the expression of the activity
of the brain."'

To illustrate how this type of reasoning can be used for political
ends, Szasz discusses the link between psychiatry and chattel slavery:

'[The] discussion of fugitive slaves and fugitive mental patients
would be incomplete without mentioning the early medicalization of
the slave's craving for freedom, that is, the discovery, in 1851, of
two "diseases peculiar to negroes"--drapetomania and dysaesthesia
Aethiopis. Drapetomania was defined as "the disease causing slaves
to run away," while dysaesthesia Aethiopis was said to be a "hebetude
of mind peculiar to negroes."'

['Liberation by Oppression']

Szasz does draw a distinction between two types of slave:

'...Psychiatric slaves are useful in a different way than were
chattel slaves. For millenia, labor was scarce and mass poverty was
the norm: slave-laborers were needed to produce goods and services.
Slavery was feudalism writ large. Slaves, laboring in the fields and
the homes, were producers of goods and services; their social status,
however, was that of dependents (they were the prototypical "child-
workers"). Today, in advanced societies, labor is plentiful and the
state is Croesus: slave-patients are needed to 'produce work and jobs
for others.' Psychiatric slavery is statism writ large. Psychiatric
slaves, treated in hospitals, clinics, and the offices of mental
health professionals, are consumers (of health care services); their
social status, however, is that of dependents (they are incompetent,
insane, non-responsible).'

[ibid]

While psychiatric slavery isn't discriminatory, according
to "experts," treatments have varying degrees of "success" among
different populations:

'When Professor Harry Grundfest asked whether Professor [Harry]
Soloman was advocating lobotomy for the convenience of hospital
administrators, Professor Robert Heath of Tulane University
said: "Isn't that a valid thing to take into consideration?..." One
physician who had no qualms about administrative goals was Dr.Walter
Freeman. "The results," he wrote, "are usually quite good,
especially from the administrative point of view... Women respond
better than men, Negroes better than Whites."'

Frankly, I agree with Dr. Karl Menninger:

'I avoid using words like schizophrenia just as I avoid using words
like "wop" and "nigger."'

[from "Psychiatrists Use Dangerous Words," Saturday Evening Post, 25
April 1964, quoted in 'Influencing Minds,' edited by Leonard Roy
Frank]

It will be interesting to see if the "African-American" president-
elect, Obama, will uphold this more recent form of slavery.

--- In thomasszaszdiscussion@yahoogroups.com, mirah@... wrote:
>
> steven wrote:
>
> > Over on his blog 'A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land,' Scott Neigh
> > reviews two of Szasz's recent books
>
> He's on the right track, and he does a fair job of representing
Szasz's
> views. He rather reminds me of the six-year-old who has discovered
that
> Santa Claus doesn't exist, but wants to hang his stocking by the
chimney
> anyway.
>
> For instance, he says:
> 'I don't agree with him, though, that there is no reason to
modulate our
> understandings of human agency based on an individual's experiences
of
> extreme mental anguish, though I have no easy,
reliable, "objective" way
> to do that, and I am skeptical of current approaches.'
>
> If he is 'skeptical of current approaches' and doesn't have
an 'easy,
> reliable, "objective"' alternative to those approaches, then on
what is
> he basing his 'understandings of human agency'?
>
> He is further most reluctant to let go of his leftist identity,
based on
> vaguities like:
> 'I don't think that "social" has to mean "state"'.
> That is exactly what it means in the word 'socialism'. Szasz has
never
> opposed any form of social intercourse which is free of state
coercion.
>
> Then he goes on to repeat the typical socialist rhetoric:
> 'poor health outcomes that are largely socially produced.'
> Health is a poorly defined concept, but surely it is not as simple
as
> that. Myriad factors contribute to good and ill health. Socialists
> usually mean that poverty produces ill health. This is equating
health
> to access to medical services. While such access can in certain
> circumstances be life-saving, it overlooks the detriment to health
by
> overconsumption of medical services, and the importance of non-
medical
> services to health such as sufficient food, clean water, safe
homes, and
> practical assistance for those who cannot care for themselves.
>
> I tend to agree with him on that it would be "more powerful to look
at
> efficacy/impacts". I think the reasons Szasz doesn't do this much
may be
> because
> a. His arguments are ideological; and
> b. Illustrating inefficacy requires leaning on statistics, and such
> statistics, even when available, are never reliable.
>
> Another socialist cliché he repeats is:
> 'oppressive and exploitative social relations beyond the state'.
> Of course there can be such relations in families, churches,
schools,
> businesses, ball clubs, and all other social groups, but the point
is
> that adults have the freedom to leave these groups if they don't
like
> what's going on, whereas there is no freedom to leave the state.
> Rightists say "love it or leave it" but there are currently no non-
state
> alternatives.
>
> He states that it is a "mistaken idea that the capitalist market is
> actually free". Here we suffer from lack of definition. To me
capitalism
> by definition is freedom. Those parts of the market that are not
free,
> are also not capitalist. Perhaps the freest markets are the illegal
> ones, because they are the only ones that escape regulation and
taxation.
>
> Further he states, 'you can't understand human behaviour, and you
can't
> evaluate it in ways that are ethically and politically meaningful'
with
> which I agree. That's the whole point. It's not the state's role to
> understand or evaluate human behavior. Its role is to protect our
freedoms.
>
> He is right that "the kinds of knowledge informing the practices of
> doctors and the imbalanced power between doctor and patient ...
have a
> lot of oppressive consequences in our experiences of healthcare".
This
> is in fact true in state health care systems as well as
alternative,
> non-state regulated systems. As long as A can be persuaded to
believe
> that B possesses important, life-saving information that A does
not, B
> can keep A under his thumb. The solution i.m.o. is not socialist
> medicine, which makes this phenomenon even worse, but medical
education
> for everybody instead of a select, state-sanctioned few. I won't
diverge
> into my views on libertarian education here.
>
> He then poses, "One of the ways in which biological psychiatry has
used
> this simplistic misunderstanding of the connection between complex
human
> behaviours and biology is to dismiss the value of actually engaging
with
> people who are in mental anguish as subjects." So what does he
want, for
> the state to engage with me when I'm in mental anguish? The state
is not
> about engaging, it is about controlling. Likewise he
states 'Certainly I
> agree with him that the kinds of responses that are based in
control
> rather than empowerment and support are things we should oppose.'
How is
> the state or a socialist health care system going to empower and
support
> me? It cannot do that, it can only control and limit me.
>
> Then he calls for what Szasz calls "prettifying the plantations":
> 'much of the time importing the disease-model for experiences of
mental
> anguish is destructive and we need new vocabulary, new concepts,
new
> approaches.'
> That's like saying, now that we know he doesn't exist, we should
stop
> calling him Santa Claus and call him St. Nick instead.
>
> I agree that 'people /do/ experience things going on inside of them
that
> are unpleasant, that they do not want, and that they wish outside
> assistance to get rid of, even if we don't call it "mental
illness."'
> And I'm sure that Szasz does too. The question is, where is this
outside
> assistance to come from? As a matter of fact, the unpleasantness
inside
> of me may well be dissipated, at least temporarily, when Santa
Claus
> laughs heartily and brings me presents.
>
> Mira
>