Maggie's Farm

Having grown up surrounded by WWII Marines, both ground pounders and aviators I side with Dr. Bliss on this issue.

Having spent almost ten years as a covert operator with the CIA often times way behind enemy lines and being in some dicey situation along the way I would have to side with Dr. Bliss.

I have known women Marines who survived the Bataan Death March, generally known for it truma. I have know Marine Aviators who were downed and captured by the Japanese and tortured..no less than the infamous "Pappy" Boyington.

My father made four island assaults in WWII leading his Marines. He won the Siver Star for some of that action. Later in his career, as an aviator he strafted the ground at such a low proximity that mud covered his cockpit. he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.

In all of these cases and men tht I have known, including my generation of Marines in Vietnam none of them ever talked of PTSD..it wasn't known. When talk began to develop about it during the end of the Vietnam war the marines I knew laughed at it. Laughed at it. War is hell.

But as the good Dr. points out if you drill down a bit deeper into the individual you find an underlying pre existing condition.

Dr Thomas Szasz, to me a brilliant thinker , but to the pyschiatric world a heretic puts it this way...give this sime thought. Dr. Szasz's work has influenced thinkers as diverse as Karl Popper, Milton Friedman, and Michel Foucault.


Dr.Szasz
The myth of mental illness: It is a medical metaphor to describe a behavioral disorder, such as schizophrenia, as an "illness" or "disease". Szasz wrote: "If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; If you talk to the dead, you are a schizophrenic."[2] While people behave and think in ways that are very disturbing, this does not mean they have a disease. To Szasz, people with mental illness have a "fake disease," and these "scientific categories" are in fact used for power controls. Schizophrenia is "the sacred symbol of psychiatry". To be a true disease, the entity must somehow be capable of being approached, measured, or tested in scientific fashion. According to Szasz, disease must be found on the autopsy table and meet pathological definition instead of being voted into existence by members of the American Psychiatric Association. Mental illnesses are "like a" disease, argues Szasz, putting mental illness in a semantic metaphorical language arts category. Psychiatry is a pseudo-science that parodies medicine by using medical sounding words invented over the last 100 years. To be clear, heart break and heart attack belong to two completely different categories. Psychiatrists are but "soul doctors", the successors of priests, who deal with the spiritual "problems in living" that have troubled people forever. Psychiatry, through various Mental Health Acts has become the secular state religion according to Thomas Szasz. It is a social control system, which disguises itself under the claims of scientificity. The notion that biological psychiatry is a real science or a genuine branch of medicine has been challenged by other critics as well, such as Michel Foucault in Madness and Civilization (1961).
Separation of psychiatry and the state: If we accept that "mental illness" is a euphemism for behaviours that are disapproved of, then the state has no right to force psychiatric "treatment" on these individuals. Similarly, the state should not be able to interfere in mental health practices between consenting adults (for example, by legally controlling the supply of psychotropic drugs or psychiatric medication). The medicalization of government produces a "therapeutic state," designating someone as "insane" or as a "drug addict". In Ceremonial Chemistry (1973), he argued that the same persecution which has targeted witches, Jews, Gypsies or homosexuals now targets "drug addicts" and "insane" people. Szasz argued that all these categories of people were taken as scapegoats of the community in ritual ceremonies. To underscore this continuation of religion through medicine, he even takes as example obesity: instead of concentrating on junk food (ill-nutrition), physicians denounced hypernutrition. According to Szasz, despite their scientific appearance, the diets imposed were a moral substitute to the former fasts, and the social injunction not to be overweight is to be considered as a moral order, not as a scientific advice as it claims to be. "Health" is a moral concept, argues Szasz. As with those thought bad (insane people), those who took the wrong drugs (drug-addicts), medicine created a category for those who had the wrong weight (obeses). Szasz argued that psychiatrics was created in the 17th century to study and control those who erred from the medical norms of social behavior; a new specialisation, "drogophobia", was created in the 20th century to study and control those who erred from the medical norms of drug consumption; and then, in the 1960s, another specialization, "bariatrics", was created to deal with those who erred from the medical norms concerning the weight which the body should have. Thus, he underscores that in 1970, the American Society of Bariatic Physicians (from the Greek baros, weight) had 30 members, and already 450 two years later.
Presumption of competence: Just as legal systems work on the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty, individuals accused of crimes should not be presumed incompetent simply because a doctor or psychiatrist labels them as such. Mental incompetence should be assessed like any other form of incompetence, i.e., by purely legal and judicial means with the right of representation and appeal by the accused.
Death control: In an analogy to birth control, Szasz argues that individuals should be able to choose when to die without interference from medicine or the state, just as they are able to choose when to conceive without outside interference. He considers suicide to be among the most fundamental rights, but he opposes state-sanctioned euthanasia.
Abolition of the insanity defense: Szasz believes that testimony about the mental competence of a defendant should not be admissible in trials. Psychiatrist testifying about the mental state of an accused person's mind have about as much business as a priest testifying about the religious state of a person's soul in our courts. Insanity was a legal tactic invented to circumvent the punishments of the Church, which, at the time included confiscation of the property of those who committed suicide, which often left widows and orphans destitute. Only an insane person would do such a thing to his widow and children, it was successfully argued. Legal mercy masquerading as medicine, said Szasz.
Abolition of involuntary hospitalization: No one should be deprived of liberty unless he is found guilty of a criminal offense. Depriving a person of liberty for what is said to be his own good is immoral. Just as a person suffering from terminal cancer may refuse treatment, so should a person be able to refuse psychiatric treatment.
Our right to drugs: Drug addiction is not a "disease" to be cured through legal drugs (Methadone instead of heroin; which forgets that heroin was created in the first place to be a substitute to opium), but a social "habit". Szasz also argues in favor of a drugs free-market. He criticized the "war on drugs", arguing that using drugs was in fact a victimless crime, or a crime without a victim. Prohibition itself constituted the crime. He shows how the "war on drugs" lead states to do things that would have never been considered half a century before, such as prohibiting a person from ingesting certain substances or interfering in other countries to impede the production of certain plants (e.g. coca eradication plans, or the campaigns against opium; both are traditional plants opposed by the Western world). Although Szasz is skeptical about the merits of psychotropic medications, he favors the repeal of drug prohibition. "Because we have a free market in food, we can buy all the bacon, eggs, and ice cream we want and can afford. If we had a free market in drugs, we could similarly buy all the barbiturates, chloral hydrate, and morphine we want and could afford." Szasz argued that the prohibition and other legal restrictions on drugs are enforced not because of their lethality, but in a ritualistic aim (he quotes Mary Douglas's studies of rituals). He also recalls that pharmakos, the Greek root of pharmacology, originally meant "scapegoat". Szasz dubbed pharmacology "pharmacomythology" because of its inclusion of social practices in its studies, in particular through the inclusion of the category of "addictiveness" in its programs. "Addictiveness" is a social category, argued Szasz, and the use of drugs should be apprehended as a social ritual rather than exclusively as the act of ingesting a chemical substance. There are many ways of ingesting a chemical substance, or "drug" (which comes from pharmakos), just as there are many different cultural ways of eating or drinking. Thus, some cultures prohibit certain types of substances, which they call "taboo", while they make use of others in various types of ceremonies.
Szasz has been associated with the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s and 1970s, although he has resisted being identified as an anti-psychiatrist. He is not opposed to the practice of psychiatry if it is non-coercive. He maintains that psychiatry should be a contractual service between consenting adults with no state involvement. He favors the abolition of involuntary hospitalization for mental illness. In a 2006 documentary film called Psychiatry: An Industry of Death released on DVD Szasz stated that involuntary mental hospitalization is a crime against humanity. Szasz also believes that, if unopposed, involuntary hospitalization will expand into "pharmacratic" dictatorship.

Szasz's work has influenced thinkers as diverse as Karl Popper, Milton Friedman, and Michel Foucault.

Dr. Szasz underlying message is that most if not all psychiatric and phychological problems have their fons et origo in pre-existing though possibly dormant physiological problems.

"The statistics supporting PTSD are unassailable..it's no longer debated etc'

Well, sure it is debated, by Dr Szasz for one. The notion that biological psychiatry is a real science or a genuine branch of medicine has been challenged by other critics as well, such as Michel Foucault in Madness and Civilization (1961). As far as the statistics suppoerting it I would say that if you go looking for statistics to support your theory you will find them every time. Particularly when there's research dollars on the line and mortgages to be paid. Sounds cynical but thats the way the government salt lick works.

What will be said when it is discovered that those with PTSD have in their genetic makeup a makeup of the human genome, which is composed of 24 distinct chromosomes (22 autosomal + X + Y) with a total of approximately 3 billion DNA base pairs containing an estimated 20,000–25,000 genes. And that this links a physiological predisposition toward PTSD just as Dr Szasz has said?

Psychiatry in the US is to medicine as voodoo is to Haiti ....Freud gave way to Jung who gave way to younger Dr. with newer theories. The field however still uses electroshock on people, does it not? Seems rather paleolithic.

Finally you make the point "Nor does the existence of pre-existing conditions make PTSD less viable" which is exactly what Dr. Szasz states.