The Social Model of Mental Illness Essay -- Psychiatry Psychology Pape

The brotherly Model of Mental IllnessThe accessible manakin of mental nausea emphasizes the kind environment and the roles people play. Thomas Scheff maintains that people diagnosed as mentally ill be victims of the status quo, guilty of often unnamed violations of social norms thus the label mental illness can be use as an instrument of social discover. I agree with Scheffs analysis, and I potently concur with the view Thomas Szasz takes on the notion of mental illness. Szasz argues that very much of what we call mental illness is a myth it is not an illness, scarcely simply problems in living, troubles caused by conflicting personal needs, opinions, social aspirations, values, and so forth (Szasz 13). It thus follows that the widely accepted medical model of mental illness is inherently flawed that mental illness should, then, surely not be treated much like physical illness. Szasz is extremely critical of contemporary psychiatry as a discipline, arguing that psyc hiatrists are not benign professionals helping to liberate individuals and improve their lives by name and treating mental illnesses, but instead act as agents of social control silencing, stigmatizing and dehumanizing people who disturb the prevailing social order. Every society rewards symmetry those with more serious problems in living often do a very poor job of conforming, and are punished accordingly. In political theory and Insanity Essays on the Psychiatric dehumanization of Man, Thomas Szasz writes that on the bingle hand, by seeking relief from the burden of his moral responsibilities, man mystifies and technicizes his problems in living...on the other hand, the demand for help thus generated is now met by a behavioral tec... ...s in trying to understand and properly treat what is dwell as mental illness, we should give some credibility and responsibility tush to those who are labeled mentally ill, looking to them for ideas, for suggestions, for guid ance. Those who have more disgustful problems in living (as well as their families and/or friends) may know more about their predicament than those who do not, and may be competent to propose, indirectly or directly, remedies that may alleviate their unfortunate plight. BibliographyAwake Magazine. bank for the Mentally Ill. September 8, 1986 ed, pgs.3-10. Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc, 1986.Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. capsize Bay Books. New York, NY, 1993.Szasz, Thomas. Ideology and Insanity Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man. Syracuse University Press. Syracuse, NY, 1991