Mito De La Enfermedad Mental

Classics in the History of Psychology
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Christopher D. Green
York University, Toronto, Ontario
ISSN 1492-3713
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The Myth of Mental Illness
By Thomas S. Szasz (1960)
First published in American Psychologist, 15, 113-118.
Posted January 2002

My aim in this essay is to raise the question "Is there such a thing as mental illness?" andto argue that there is not. Since the notion of mental illness is extremely widely used nowadays, inquiry into the ways in which this term is employed would seem to be especially indicated. Mental illness, of course, is not literally a "thing" -- or physical object -- and hence it can "exist" only in the same sort of way in which other theoretical concepts exist. Yet, familiar theories are inthe habit of posing, sooner or later -- at least to those who come to believe in them -- as "objective truths" (or "facts"). During certain historical periods, explanatory conceptions such as deities, witches, and microorganisms appeared not only as theories but as self-evident causes of a vast number of events. I submit that today mental illness is widely regarded in a somewhat similar fashion,that is, as the cause of innumerable diverse happenings. As an antidote to the complacent use of the notion of mental illness -- whether as a self-evident phenomenon, theory, or cause--let us ask this question: What is meant when it is asserted that someone is mentally ill?
In what follows I shall describe briefly the main uses to which the concept of mental illness has been put. I shall arguethat this notion has outlived whatever usefulness it might have had and that it now functions merely as a convenient myth.

MENTAL ILLNESS AS A SIGN OF BRAIN DISEASE
The notion of mental illness derives it main sup- port from such phenomena as syphilis of the brain or delirious conditions-intoxications, for instance -- in which persons are known to manifest various peculiarities or disorders ofthinking and behavior. Correctly speaking, however, these are diseases of the brain, not of the mind. According to one school of thought, all so-called mental illness is of this type. The assumption is made that some neurological defect, perhaps a very subtle one, will ultimately be found for all the disorders of thinking and behavior. Many contemporary psychiatrists, physicians, and otherscientists hold this view. This position implies that people cannot have troubles -- expressed in what are now called "mental illnesses" -- because of differences in personal needs, opinions, social aspirations, values, and so on. All problems in living are attributed to physicochemical processes which in due time will be discovered by medical research.
"Mental illnesses" are thus regarded asbasically no different than all other diseases (that is, of the body). The only difference, in this view, between mental and bodily diseases is that the former, affecting the brain, manifest themselves by means of mental symptoms; whereas the latter, affecting other organ systems (for example, the skin, liver, etc.), manifest themselves by means of symptoms referable to those parts of the body. Thisview rests on and expresses what are, in my opinion, two fundamental errors.
In the first place, what central nervous system symptoms would correspond to a skin eruption or a fracture? It would not be some emotion or complex bit of behavior. Rather, it would be blindness or a paralysis of some part of the body. The crux of the matter is that a disease of the brain, analogous to a disease of theskin or bone, is a neurological defect, and not a problem in living. For example, a defect in a person's visual field may be satisfactorily explained by correlating it with certain definite lesions in the nervous system. On the other hand, a person's belief -- whether this be a belief in Christianity, in Communism, or in the idea that his internal organs are "rotting" and that his body is, in...