ostic categories and procedures which are most unreliable. Also, the meaning of neurotic or psychotic or psychopathic is uncertain within the context of these studies and they do not refer to modern biological categories of brain disease. Terms such as insanity, mental illness, and mens rea have no scientific meaning, therefore we must leave as unspecified and uncertain the relationships between insanity, mental illness and criminal law. We certainly cannot conclude that mental illness bears any relationship to diseases of the brain, nor can we conclude that mental illness or insanity causes criminal behavior. THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESSNot only is there no agreement as to the meaning of insanity and mental illness, but to add further confusion, there is a school of thought that states that mental illness is a myth and does not exist. This approach is found in the works of such persons as Thomas Szasz (1961;1963) who argues that mental illness is a myth and label applied to behavior by psychiatrists who are making political and ethical decisions, and Laing (1969;1971) who claims that labels are being used by society to impose violence and control on people. View such as these and others deny the physical and biological basis of behavioral disorders. They separate completely biology and behavior, brain and behavior, and mental and physical. The fact that we refer to "mental" disease has been cited as evidence that we do not regard it as disease but as something outside the realm of biological science. Szasz states, for example, that the psychiatrist confuses physical disease and neurological disorders with mental diseases.A study in evidence of this was done by Rosenhan (Ziskin, 1975:54) known as "Being Sane in Insane Places." Rosenhan, a psychologist, placed eight normal people in mental hospitals as "pseudo-patients." They were diagnosed as schizophrenic, and later on when they appeared normal, rediagnosed as schizophrenia in remission....
