Laing Versus Szasz: Antagonists, Kindred Spirits, or a Misconstrued Rivalry?

In the mid-1970s, as the role of institutional psychiatry was being debated, Thomas S. Szasz directed a severe and unexpected critique at the work of Ronald D. Laing, after which there arose an acrimonious debate between Szasz and supporters of Laing in the Philadelphia Association (PA). (Laing himself conspicuously declined to respond to Szasz). This clash of views was initiated by Szasz in The New Review (TNR), which prompted a series of rebuttals from those working alongside Laing in the PA. Pivotal to this dispute were contrasting ideas on how to guide people from breakdown to sanity and the roles to be played by professionals and institutions in engaging with them. The main purpose of this article is to evaluate whether Laing (seen through lens of his then-associates in the PA) and Szasz were “antagonists,” whether they shared a kindred spirit in their view of the psychiatric establishment, or whether their perceived differences on how to treat psychic sufferers stemmed from misrepresentations created by themselves or others. My conclusion is that, even though Laing and Szasz shared an interest in changing conventional psychiatric practice and the mode of understanding and treating psychic suffering, each side misconstrued the position of the other.

Leading up to The Myth of Mental Illness

The Myth of Mental Illness was the book that launched Szasz’s reputation as a critical psychiatrist. Although he was aware of its controversial nature, the storm it generated in the United States and beyond took him by surprise. Examining the early years of Szasz’s career and contermplating certain contextual factors, in particular the sociopolitical background that shines through his work in many ways, as well as the social circumstances around psychiatry at the time, show to what extent his publications before 1961 predicted his later rebellion against the psychiatric establishment. In these early discussions of such topics as pain, psychosomatic illness, and scientific reductionism, one sees germs of his bent toward libertarian sociological, philosophical, and ideological theories of psychoanalyis, the physician-patient relationship, sociopolitical psychology, and culture in general.

The Rise of Gay Rights and the Disavowal of Disability in the United States

Homosexuality has a complex history of entwinement with disability, marked most notably by its long-standing designation as a form of mental illness. That attribution was anticipated by nineteenth-century sexologists and promoted by mid-twentieth-century psychiatrists. In the years that followed, gay and lesbian activists worked to distance themselves from that stigmatizing association, successfully lobbying to remove “homosexuality” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973. Revisited here is the history of the gay liberationist battle against the psychiatric establishment as viewed through the analytical lenses offered by critical disability studies and disability history. Also tracked are the exclusionary and stigmatizing effects of the insistence on homosexuality as “healthy.”

A Very Sinister Doctor and a Cosmic Monster

This chapter focuses on the character of Dr. Sam Loomis, Michael Myers's psychiatrist. Loomis's only accomplishments in the film Halloween (1978) are entirely outside of his training as a psychiatrist, and may even run counter to it. Terms like ‘psychopath’, ‘schizophrenic’, and ‘neurotic’ appear nowhere in Halloween, and even ‘catatonic’ appears only in the extended television cut. All of Loomis's therapeutic methods have not allowed him to understand, let alone help, Michael, and the psychiatric establishment around him has done little to recognise and prepare for the threat that he rightly feels Michael represents. Loomis provides a link to another tradition of horror fiction, in which doctors and scientists investigate and confront monsters and supernatural phenomena. His character is also reminiscent of the tormented scholars who prove to be some of the more capable protagonists in H.P. Lovecraft's short stories. Though John Carpenter's work is probably more dependent on a ‘homocentric’ worldview than Lovecraft, Lovecraft's mode of cosmic indifferentism provides a framework for addressing the old question of what motivates Michael, while reconsidering the film within the generic framework of cosmic horror.

The Surgical Elimination of Violence? Conflicting Attitudes towards Technology and Science during the Psychosurgery Controversy of the 1970s

ArgumentIn the 1970s a public controversy erupted over the proposed use of brain operations to curtail violent behavior. Civil libertarians, civil rights and community activists, leaders of the anti-psychiatry movement, and some U.S. Congressmen charged psychosurgeons and the National Institute of Mental Health, with furthering a political project: the suppression of dissent. Several government-sponsored investigations into psychosurgery rebutted this charge and led to an official qualified endorsement of the practice while calling attention to the need for more “scientific” understanding and better ethical safeguards. This paper argues that the psychosurgery debate of the 1970s was more than a power struggle between members of the public and the psychiatric establishment. The debate represented a clash between a postmodern skepticism about science and renewed focus on ultimate ends, on the one hand, and a modern faith in standards and procedures, a preoccupation with means, on the other. These diverging commitments made the dispute ultimately irresolvable.

Hebephrenia: a conceptual history

This paper traces the conceptual history of hebephrenia from the late nineteenth century until it became firmly embedded into modern psychiatric classification systems. During this examination of the origins and the historical context of hebephrenia it will be demonstrated how it became inextricably linked with twentieth-century notions of schizophrenia. The first detailed description of hebephrenia in 1871 by Ewald Hecker, then a virtually unknown German psychiatrist, created a furore in the psychiatric establishment. Within a decade hebephrenia was a firmly embedded concept of adolescent insanity. Daraszkiewicz, Kraepelin’s brilliant assistant in Dorpat, broadened Hecker’s concept of hebephrenia by including severe forms. This paved the way for Kraepelin to incorporate it together with catatonia as a subtype of dementia praecox. We recognize Hecker’s hebephrenia in DSM-IV as schizophrenia, disorganized type. Although DSM-5 will probably abolish subtypes of schizophrenia, characteristic features of hebephrenia will be found within the proposed domains of disorganization, restricted emotional expression and avolition.

“Not Worth Powder and Shot”

Dr Montagu Lomax worked as an assistant medical officer at Prestwich Asylum for two years from 1917. His book,The Experiences of an Asylum Doctor,was published in 1921. He was condemned by the psychiatric establishment for his description of inhuman, custodial, and antitherapeutic conditions. Access to previously confidential official papers, to the archives of Prestwich Hospital, and to Professor George Robertson's correspondence has permitted a reconstruction of the Lomax affair. Lomax was a dedicated and sincere clinician. Senior Ministry of Health officials regarded Lomax's book as “temperate”, “well founded”, and an opportunity to secure public support for long needed legal and administrative reforms. Through his book, Lomax made a lasting contribution to the cause of mental health reform.