these problems. To think of mental illness as “illness” is to overlook the simple fact that “human relations are inherently fraught with difficulties”, as Szasz acknowledges, “and to make them even relatively harmonious requires much patience and hard work (Szasz 20).” So what, if anything, can be done? To put it simply, what is it about life in our society that makes so many people depressed or drives them nuts? If 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 people in our country suffer from a “mental illness” at one time or another, then something is fundamentally wrong with the way we live, the way we have organized our society. I cannot propose a solution for each societal ill that causes so many problems in living, but to start with we certainly could make some fundamental changes in the way we think about mental illness. Do people need to be drugged, medicated for problems in living that are non-medical in nature? They shouldn’t. Do they need to be imprisoned in hospitals, isolated and dehumanized as deviants? They shouldn’t. Modern psychiatry in its present state can’t really be part of the solution, because it is part of the problem, failing to address the true nature of what it calls “mental illness.” A massive overhaul and refocus of the psychiatric field in the proper direction is highly unlikely, if not absolutely implausible. The focus should be on listening, talking and understanding, not labeling, diagnosing and medically “treating.” Szasz asks if the goal of psychiatry is the advancement of knowledge in understanding human behavior; or the regulation of misconduct and thus the control of human behavior? (Szasz 10). Psychiatry’s goal, as well as ours as a society, must be the former. Instead of trying to speculate as to the malfunctioning in their brains, we should try to identify and understand the malfunctioning in their lives, however...
