I am at a conference of the great thinkers of psychology. Thomas Szasz, MD, spoke (or was supposed to, he was snowed in. He forwarded his notes though, which I find fascinating.) Using the latest in brain imaging studies and social psychology advancements, he still claims that mental illness does not exist.PeterB wrote:Szasz frankly is old hat, during my psychiatric training he was very influential but his whole view of the world has been superceded by social change and by a greater understanding of the brain including by advances in mapping the functions of the brain through imaging techniques.
I am not anti-psychiatry, I know many are helped by short-term use of medications. Somewhere early on in this thread, a message was given: "You are not allowed to question the utility of psychiatric medications, because then the streets would run wild with dangerous psychotics." I say hog-wash, red herring argument. Then those who challenge the utility of psychiatric medications were compared to Scientiologists. Also red herring argument. If we are going to have a real discussion about whether psychiatric medications are consistent with or in violation of the 5th precept, then we need to ignore some of this extraneous noise. No one was debating whether or not psychiatry is a contradiction with right livelihood, but I can see the parallels.