Expand the boundaries of normal

“This book first thundered in the revolutionary 1960s for world psychology: it became part of a powerful movement for the emancipation of man and his consciousness – from experiments with LSD and the hippie movement to humanistic psychology and psychotherapy. At the same time, the word “anti-psychiatry” sounded, and among the main names associated with it is Thomas Szasz. He claimed that mental illness does not exist, it is a myth invented by doctors for the purpose of social control!

And now his book was first published in Russian. It turned out that this is not a passionate manifesto at all, but rather an academic analysis, a thoughtful attempt to understand the nature of mental illness, which is completely different from the nature of body diseases. Thomas Szasz, like his contemporaries – philosopher Michel Foucault and sociologist Erwin Hoffmann – argues that the concept of insanity, mental illness is determined more by social norms than by objective medical criteria. A madman is one whom society recognizes as such, because he does not comply with the norms of this society. Either he can’t get used to it, or he doesn’t want to.

Let us remember the “crazy” Chatsky, and at the same time the victims of punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union, based on the assumption that only a madman can go against social dogma and seek truth and justice. As Szas notes, “the laws of psychology cannot be formulated independently of the laws of sociology.” And he explains: “Psychiatrists do not deal with mental illness. In real practice, they deal with the social and ethical problems of life.”

Szas writes about behavior as a system of signs. He likens the ratio of two languages ​​to the ratio of the subjective sensations of the patient and the complaints that he makes to the therapist, with painful disorders in his body. Accordingly, the problem of translation arises.

Such a view is not unique in the history of psychology, and Szasz points to parallels starting with Freud, who was the first to view hysterical symptoms as symbolically expressing certain meanings. We can also mention the symbolic interactionism in social psychology, represented by the concept of Erwin Hoffmann, the transactional analysis of Eric Berne and Thomas Harris, the etogenic approach of Rom Harre. And in his affirmation of the value of freedom, Szas takes Chekhov as an ally with his “deep understanding of the laws of slavery,” expressed in Chamber No. 6.