The Reality of Mental Illness

This book is psychiatry's reply to the diverse group of antipsychiatrists that has made fashionable the view that mental illness is merely socially deviant behaviour.

Martin Roth (Author), Jerome Kroll (Author)

9780521337618, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 July 1986

140 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.8 cm, 0.22 kg

This book is psychiatry's reply to the diverse group of antipsychiatrists, including Laing, Foucault, Goffman, Szasz and Bassaglia, that has made fashionable the view that mental illness is merely socially deviant behaviour and that psychiatrists are agents of the capitalist society seeking to repress such behaviour. It establishes, by the use of evidence from historical and transcultural studies, that mental illness has been recognized in all cultures since the beginning of history and goes on to explore the philosophical and medical basis for psychiatry's diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Finally, it tackles two issues where psychiatry has been seen as at odds with the values prevailing in society: involuntary hospitalization and the insanity defence. The Reality of Mental Illness does not pretend to offer simple answers to the complex problems it discusses, but will leave the reader with a much greater understanding of psychiatry's aims, practices and problems.

Introduction
1. Mental illness, psychiatry and its critics
2. Disorders of the mind and the role of medicine in historical perspective
3. The evidence from transcultural enquiries
4. A consideration of the mind-body problem and its bearing on the concept of disease
5. Medical and alternative models of mental disease
6. Social, ethical and philosophical aspects of involuntary hospitalization and the insanity defence
Notes.

Subject Areas: Medicine: general issues [MB]