The Reality of Mental Illness

by Martin Roth, Jerome Kroll

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.

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Casian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mean, they didn’t need to convince me, but it’s good to always have a defence ready when someone’s tries to undermine mental illness. Very well layed out and simply explained defences of the reality of mentality illness and the need for psychiatry.
So so interesting how when mentioning how biological pathology changes over time so does psychiatric pathology, they mentioned how homosexuality was seen as a mental illness and is no longer, yet they still mentioned transsexuality as a mental illness. It was published in 1986, and here u can clearly see the application of this comment to our own times and evolution of what is an illness and what isn’t, what should and shouldn’t, needs or needn’t be pathologised.
While it is a bit outdated in its case examples and social commentary, the core values and arguments are valid and still hold up.