[lbo-talk] RE: The Economics of Depression

Devine, James jdevine at lmu.edu
Tue Dec 30 07:21:10 PST 2003


marc rodrigues writes: >anyway, to the person who recommended the szasz book, i was wondering what you got out of it because it gets pretty much trashed by a couple of reviewers on amazon who say the book argues that there is no such thing as mental illness and all the so-called depressed people should just get out of bed and get a job...<

E. Fuller Torrey, MD, SURVIVING SCHIZOPHRENIA: A MANUAL FOR FAMILIES, CONSUMERS [!], AND PROVIDERS, writes: "Szasz has produced more erudite nonsense on the subject of serious mental illness than any writer alive. As a historian Szasz is first class, but as a psychiatrist he never moved beyond a strictly psychoanalytic approach to treating schizophrenia. He argues, for example, that schizophrenia is merely a creation of psychiatry and "if there is no psychiatry there can be no schizophrenia." What wonderful simplicity! One wonders whether he has ever seen a patient with the disease." (p. 431; see also p. 171)

BTW, Torrey -- who is clearly very knowledgeable on this subject -- also presents evidence that indicates that "insight-oriented psychotherapy" (which includes psychoanalysis) actually makes schizophrenia worse (p. 203f).

My experience with my son, who has ADD, Asperger's syndrome, and (maybe) psychosis, indicates that there's _no way_ that mental illness is merely a verbal construct created by psychiatrists.

Jim D

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