When Will They Listen To Szasz? (2)

As with homosexuality, other attitudes change. In the 1960s and earlier, a pupil who talked back to a teacher might end up with a thick ear. Today, this would result in the teacher being charged with assault, fired, and banned permanently from working with the young.

If no behaviour can be an illness, then neither can a belief, even an irrational one. In the above two books, Szasz drew comparisons with witchcraft hysteria and the Inquisition. Is a belief in the efficacy of witchcraft an illness? It may be a delusion, or simply an erroneous belief. 

In spite of the problems the world faces, it has never been richer; people live longer and have higher standards of living than in the past, yet mental illnesses have multiplied. Why is this? Could it be because they are voted into existence?

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the Bible of psychiatrists. DSM-1 was published in 1952 and contained 106 categories.

DSM-5 was published in May 2013 by which time it had expanded to nearly a thousand pages.

So if mental illness does not exist, what does? The simple answer is human weakness. It may be that dysgenic breeding patterns are leading to a weakening of the human species. Generally, intelligent people have fewer children than dumb ones. This is especially true today when most intelligent women pursue careers of some sort and often delay starting their families. A staggering number of female politicians are childless including Theresa May and Angela Merkel.

Not so long ago, the weak would die in infancy or would not live long enough to breed. Those who did, would end up in the workhouse or worse. Our ancestors worked long hours in a world without electricity, and most found life hard. Today, many people still find life hard, at times that includes people born into privilege. Hunter Biden is a classic example. Can all his problems be blamed on his addiction to cocaine? Many less privileged people of both sexes have become addicted to cocaine or other drugs but have broken their addictions. Much so-called mental illness is simply malingering. It is easy to condemn such people but for many of them it is the only way they can get through life. 

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychological condition that can cause physiological reactions, but again, this is all part of the human condition. Lock a dozen people in a confined space for ten or twelve hours, a stalled elevator say, and no one should be surprised if an argument or two broke out. Adverse social conditions and the madness of crowds can also lead to some strange behaviour, media-generated hysteria, social contagion, the list goes on, but these are not illnesses, mental or otherwise.

So what should be done? What should be done and what can be done are two entirely different things, primarily because there are so many people making comfortable livings out of the mental health industry. It is also a truism that some treatments cause more harm than good, if they do any good at all. One need look no further than the current insane “gender affirmation” industry or whatever it is called this week. How can it be beneficial to “affirm” the desire of a teenage girl to have her breasts removed? Back in the 80s, young women would go into therapy suffering from eating disorders and come out believing they’d been raped by their own fathers. And we haven’t even mentioned mind-altering drugs; there is good evidence that these are substantially responsible for mass shootings and other outrages as much as any ideology.

So when will the people who matter listen to Szasz? Hopefully before it is too late, but if the breakdown of especially American society is anything to go by, we are now at the eleventh hour.

Back to Part 1.