Szaz Flashcards
What type of research is Szaz?
a review article
What are the weaknesses of a review article?
extremely subjective - own opinions - not scientific
Where did Szaz focus his research?
USA
What did Szaz aim to do?
challenge the medical character of mental illness in the USA over the 50 years since 1960
What does Szaz believe about mental illness?
it is defined by society in terms of whether a person’s behaviour deviates from a social norm
What area of applied psych: issues in mental health links to Szaz?
historical explanations of behaviour
What are the 4 main sections of Szaz’s review article?
- 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
What are Szaz’s beliefs about fifty years of change in the US mental healthcare system?
- 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
What are Szaz’s beliefs about mental illness: a medical or legal concept?
- 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
What are Szaz’s beliefs about mental illness being a metaphor?
- brain diseases
- there is no proof for brain diseases - no scientific evidence + ever expanding list of disorders
- mental illness “devoid of meaning”
What are Szaz’s beliefs about changing perspectives on human life (and illness)?
- old religious humanistic perspective replaced with secular medicalisation
- madness is normal - apart of the human experience - should not be labelled
What are Szaz’s beliefs about mental illness being in the eye of the beholder?
- 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
What are Szaz’s beliefs about revisiting the myth of mental illness?
- mental illness became a political weapon
- healing through therapy (PCT)
What are Szaz’s beliefs about having an illness not making an individual a patient?
- creation of suicidology
- state sanctioned coercive and controlling institutions
What are the key points of Szaz’s article?
- changes to mental illness classification due to politicisation and medicalisation
- subjectivity of psychiatry
- involuntary medical care
- no scientific evidence - pseudo-science
- not saying mental illness doesn’t exist BUT not abnormal
Why does Szaz consider the medical model unacceptable?
- not based on scientific research
- inhumane
- not verifiable
How does Szaz think patients should be treated?
- understanding and respecting reasons behind behaviour and the person as an individual
- talking therapy (PCT)
compare treatment of mental illness between medical model and Szaz
medical model = biological e.g., medication and fMRI
Szaz = talking therapy (psychotherapy)
evaluate Szaz according to the deterministic or free will debate
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
evaluate Szaz according to the reductionism vs holism debate
holistic
- acknowledges other possibilities other than biology for mental illness - whole individual
- acknowledges need for evidence
- less scientific
evaluate Szaz according to the nature vs nurture debate
nurture
- rejection of medical model = nature
- social construct - not brain disease BUT also could be
evaluate Szaz according to the individual vs situational debate
situational
- looks at social context
- politicisation
individual
- apart of human life
evaluate Szaz’s sample
- culture bias - only USA = ethnocentric = not representative or generalisable
- lacks external reliability
evaluate Szaz according to validity
- subjective - own opinions / interpretation = less scientific - no objective data
- lacks population validity and construct validity
