dbtonydb wrote:

> Listen to todays Szasz, he is still on the ball.

Dr. Szasz is brilliant as always. So refreshing compared to all the
nonsense others spout.

I particularly like this: "This is a job for the jury to decide whether
he is guilty or not, not for a professional who doesn't know anything
about what happened, who wasn't there, any more than the jury."

Compare that to physician John Sadler in the third program: "Our role is
not so much as the tie-breakers or the decision-makers, but rather as
consensus-builders and facilitators of communication and clarification
of the ethical issues involved, or the various play of different
personal values." What has this to do with medicine?

Later he speaks of: "the whole effort in biological psychiatry and
neuroscience and the voluminous amounts of research establishing
biological or neuroscientific correlates of mental illness, and the
beginnings of sketching out the causes of mental illness..." We the
listeners are apparently supposed to assume that these correlates and
causes have been found.

His colleague Michael Robinson speaks of "the factual basis of mental
illness". Then he goes on to admit, "we have a very strong sense that
what would be considered a serious mental illness does have an
underlying biological basis." I.o.w., there is no proof whatsoever, just
a very strong sense (subjective feeling).

Note also that at the charge of "you get to decide according to your
classification system what constitutes unacceptable behaviour" John
Sadler responds: "I think that's one of the worries that Szasz offers
that's legitimate and that it is important for every psychiatrist to
take very seriously." Every psychiatrist is to take it seriously, and
whoever isn't a psychiatrist? But then he also says "You might say the
sacred symbol of commitment laws is suicide prevention, and we really
don't know whether commitment laws really prevent people taking their
lives. That seems to me to be very problematic and that's something that
not just psychiatrists need to consider but societies in general, and
the lawmakers that make these requirements." Apparently he feels suicide
prevention should be scrutinized also by societies and lawmakers, but
locking up deviants is purely for psychiatrists to decide.

Michael Robinson's parting shot is: "mental illness should not be
separated out from other conditions like dementia, or intellectual
disability, where we don't seem to have trouble implying principles like
guardianship." I.m.o. people with dementia (he probably means old-age
senility) and intellectual disability don't belong in medicine either.
They need care, but not *medical* care. And their guardians should not
be their carers.

I'm hoping conditions such as senility and intellectual disability will
feature in one of Dr. Szasz's next books.

Thanks Tony and Steven for pointing out these links.

Mira