what the nuclear physicist calls a breeder reaction; once initiated and having reached a “critical” stage, the process feeds on itself, transforming more and more human problems and situations into specialized technical “problems” to be “solved” by so-called mental health professionals (Szasz 3).”Szasz, noting that psychiatry has laid claims to progressively larger areas of personal conduct and social relations, goes on to say that “the conquest of human existence, or of the life process, by the mental health professionals started with the identification and classification of so-called mental illnesses, and has culminated in our day with the claim that all of life is a “psychiatric problem” for behavioral science to “solve” (Szasz 3, italics mine). In his view, today, particularly in the affluent West, all of the difficulties and problems in living are considered psychiatric diseases, and everyone (but the diagnosticians) is considered mentally ill (Szasz 4). However, there is very little evidence supporting the popular view that for the most part “mental illnesses” are mental diseases; that is, of a legitimate biological, physiological, neurological or chromosomal nature. Instead, as Szasz writes, “what people now call mental illnesses are, for the most part, communications expressing unacceptable ideas, often framed in an unusual idiom (Szasz 19).” Szasz summarizes the essence of the problem in this way: in contemporary social usage, the finding of mental illness is made by establishing a deviance in behavior from certain psychosocial, ethical or legal norms. The judgment is made, as in medicine, by the patient, the psychiatrist or others. Remedial action is then sought in a therapeutic-or covertly medical-framework, creating a situation in which it is claimed that psychosocial, ethical, and legal deviations can be correcte...
