Szaz

Question 1

What type of research is Szaz?

Answer 1

a review article

Question 2

What are the weaknesses of a review article?

Answer 2

extremely subjective - own opinions - not scientific

Question 3

Where did Szaz focus his research?

Answer 3

USA

Question 4

What did Szaz aim to do?

Answer 4

challenge the medical character of mental illness in the USA over the 50 years since 1960

Question 5

What does Szaz believe about mental illness?

Answer 5

it is defined by society in terms of whether a person’s behaviour deviates from a social norm

Question 6

What area of applied psych: issues in mental health links to Szaz?

Answer 6

historical explanations of behaviour

Question 7

What are the 4 main sections of Szaz’s review article?

Answer 7

• fifty years of change in US mental healthcare
• mental illness - a medical or legal concept
• mental illness’ a metaphor
• revisiting the myth of mental illness

Question 8

What are Szaz’s beliefs about fifty years of change in the US mental healthcare system?

Answer 8

• distinction between medical and mental hospitals blurred into non-existence & become responsibility of government and tax payers
• mental illness practices are a pseudo-science
• politicisation and medicalisation of mental illness = dehumanising

Question 9

What are Szaz’s beliefs about mental illness: a medical or legal concept?

Answer 9

• classification systems - updated and changed - social context
• Bill Clinton and the US political system declaring mental illness the same as a physical illness despite no scientific evidence or research
• mental hospitals are the same as prisons - coercive behaviour

Question 10

What are Szaz’s beliefs about mental illness being a metaphor?

Answer 10

• brain diseases
• there is no proof for brain diseases - no scientific evidence + ever expanding list of disorders
• mental illness “devoid of meaning”

Question 11

What are Szaz’s beliefs about changing perspectives on human life (and illness)?

Answer 11

• old religious humanistic perspective replaced with secular medicalisation
• madness is normal - apart of the human experience - should not be labelled

Question 12

What are Szaz’s beliefs about mental illness being in the eye of the beholder?

Answer 12

• subjectivity of psychiatry
• observers construction and definition
• deprivation of liberty and human rights
• mental illness cannot be treated or cured by drugs & to help people with mental disorders is to listen and respect them
• ability to accept or reject diagnosis

Question 13

What are Szaz’s beliefs about revisiting the myth of mental illness?

Answer 13

• mental illness became a political weapon
• healing through therapy (PCT)

Question 14

What are Szaz’s beliefs about having an illness not making an individual a patient?

Answer 14

• creation of suicidology
• state sanctioned coercive and controlling institutions

Question 15

What are the key points of Szaz’s article?

Answer 15

1. changes to mental illness classification due to politicisation and medicalisation
2. subjectivity of psychiatry
3. involuntary medical care
4. no scientific evidence - pseudo-science
5. not saying mental illness doesn’t exist BUT not abnormal

Question 16

Why does Szaz consider the medical model unacceptable?

Answer 16

• not based on scientific research
• inhumane
• not verifiable

Question 17

How does Szaz think patients should be treated?

Answer 17

• understanding and respecting reasons behind behaviour and the person as an individual
• talking therapy (PCT)

Question 18

compare treatment of mental illness between medical model and Szaz

Answer 18

medical model = biological e.g., medication and fMRI
Szaz = talking therapy (psychotherapy)

Question 19

evaluate Szaz according to the deterministic or free will debate

Answer 19

free will
- to choose/control/define own lives and treatment - right to accept or reject diagnosis - don’t have to get hep if don’t want it
- normal human experience

Question 20

evaluate Szaz according to the reductionism vs holism debate

Answer 20

holistic
- acknowledges other possibilities other than biology for mental illness - whole individual
- acknowledges need for evidence
- less scientific

Question 21

evaluate Szaz according to the nature vs nurture debate

Answer 21

nurture
- rejection of medical model = nature
- social construct - not brain disease BUT also could be

Question 22

evaluate Szaz according to the individual vs situational debate

Answer 22

situational
- looks at social context
- politicisation
individual
- apart of human life

Question 23

evaluate Szaz’s sample

Answer 23

• culture bias - only USA = ethnocentric = not representative or generalisable
• lacks external reliability

Question 24

evaluate Szaz according to validity

Answer 24

• subjective - own opinions / interpretation = less scientific - no objective data
• lacks population validity and construct validity

Question 25

evaluate Szaz according to ethics and social sensitivity

Answer 25

social sensitivity
- distrust of psychiatry
- invalidates experience with mental illness - people may misinterpret and stop taking medication
NOT socially sensitive
- free will
- no labelling - normalises = reduce stigma

Question 26

evaluate Szaz according to usefulness

Answer 26

practical applications
- therapy (PCT)
- government changes/ considerations = choice over treatment and human rights evolved
- improvements since Rosenhan