In a message dated 3/13/2001 8:23:48 AM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
With Szasz, I think it helps to expose students to
films of his work and other materials to fully cover his ideas in depth, it
does his work no justice to just present Szasz as the guy who wrote Myth of
Mental Illness, who doesn't believe in Mental Illness, etc. and move on, it
comes off as too simplistic, and its easy to present him as a crackpot.
I will disagree with this viewpoint. I do introduce Szasz's view in the
abnormal psych module of intro psych, I do not present him as a "crackpot"
because I tend to agree with him, not on all points, but many. I believe
that many students are capable of understanding the concept the society does
to some extent define what "normal" is, that the tremendous increase in the
diagnosis of ADD/ADHD is at least partly an artifact of the changes in the
last century in how children are raised and schooled, and that the difference
between the "heartless" con artist serving 10-20 who has the diagnosis of APD
and the corporate lawyer for Firestone (or GM) who writes the memo saying
"Our product is defective, but from a cost-profit standpoint, we might as
well let a few accidents happen and pay the bodily injury liability claims
instead of spend the money on a product recall that will cost far more to
us." and who isn't in jail and doesn't have the diagnosis may be a difference
of class and societal circumstance and nothing else.
Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College
Monterey Park, CA
