Szasz on mental illness

Baruch Brody

pp. 251-257

in: Tristram Engelhardt, Stuart Spicker (eds), Mental health: philosophical perspectives, Berlin, Springer, 1978

Abstract

Dr. Szasz tells us that he will argue that the concept of mental illness causes continuing difficulties because it is a prescriptive concept being used as though it were a descriptive concept, a justificatory concept disguised as an explanatory concept. If his arguments were correct, then he would certainly have spotted a fundamental difficulty with the current use of that concept. I do not know whether or not Dr. Szasz's claim is ultimately correct; all that I shall try to show in my remarks is that Dr. Szasz's arguments for this claim fail.