Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

Re:Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be... by saalweachter on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @09:01PM (#7228853)

Fine, he was a morally bankrupt doctor. I agree I should not have claimed otherwise in my initial invective and apologize for my error, but let me reiterate: his stance on mental illness did not originate from his medical or scientific observations, but from his philosophy. And despite living through fifty years of startling advances in medicine, where huge swaths of mental illness were found to have biological origins in the brain, he never recanted. So fuck him, he was an asshole.

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Re:Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be... by doktrin on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:46PM (#7229238)

> And despite living through fifty years of startling advances in medicine, where huge swaths of mental illness were found to have biological origins in the brain

Pretty much this. Having just heard about him today, it's clear his [Szasz] statements reflect technological limitations of yesteryear combined with intense personal bias.

Why anyone would still espouse the concepts this guy put forward is beyond me.

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Re:Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be... by prestadige on Thursday February 13, 2014 @07:56AM (#7231025)

If science had found biological origins or symptoms for mental illness in the brain, don't you think these would be used for diagnostic purposes?

Szasz was indeed a deeply unpopular man, but progress often depends upon such people.

For instance, did you know that he was the first psychiatrist to claim publicly that homosexuality is not a disease? (In 'Sexual Inversion: The Multiple Roots of Homosexuality', ed. by Judd Marmor, Basic Books, 1965)

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Re:Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be... by vonmoltke on Thursday February 13, 2014 @10:48AM (#7231929)

> If science had found biological origins or symptoms for mental illness in the brain, don't you think these would be used for diagnostic purposes?

Science has found biological symptoms for Alzheimer's and rabies. Unfortunately, these can only be firmly identified post-mortem and are thus not useful for diagnostic purposes. Just two examples if diseases with biological markers that are not useful.

> For instance, did you know that he was the first psychiatrist to claim publicly that homosexuality is not a disease? (In 'Sexual Inversion: The Multiple Roots of Homosexuality', ed. by Judd Marmor, Basic Books, 1965)

A broken clock is right twice a day. When you claim mental illness doesn't exist in toto, then of course you will be "right" about bullshit mental illnesses like homosexuality.

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