Book Summaries by Wise Words #20 - The Myth of Mental Illness - Book Summary
The Myth of Mentall Illness book summary can be found here - https://wisewords.blog/book-summaries/myth-of-mental-illness-book-summary/
Today we are reviewing 'The Myth of Mental Illness by Dr Thomas Szasz which gives a critique of the psychiatric field and tries to explain why there is no such thing as mental illness. Now as you can tell by the title of this episode, this is quite a controversial book, we mean no offence but we thought it would be interesting to review it and see how it compares with the mainstream idea of therapeutics and psychiatry.
Dr Szasz’s main point about mental illness is that it refers to the mind, which is not a biological construct but a mere abstraction of the brain, thus suggesting that there is no such thing as mental illness as any illness must be biological. How this biological illness may have started is a different matter.
The book is based around the concept of diagnosing something based on biological or environmental causes. How do you tell which is having an effect on the individual and how should one go about helping that individual, a drug for a biological cause or therapy for an environmental one.
In this episode, we touch on many topics such as incentives to diagnose, free will in regard to overcoming an illness, drugs and whether they are a solution, and much more.
I do recommend you give it a listen, if anything it just makes you question the system that we take so freely for granted. Whether he is right in his observations, it is an interesting listen that I guarantee will spark a bit of interest. And remember if you do like it, make sure you give us a thumbs up, leave a comment or make our day by subscribing to our channel. I hope you enjoy it.
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- Twitter: https://twitter.com/wisewordsblog
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