courtroom. And they should.
All âmental illnessâ cannot be a free ticket to exoneration. âTo understand all is to forgive allâ is not an operative principle except in the psychiatristâs officeâin the context of medicineâwhere the patient is granted certain special privileges and understanding. Inherent in the definition of the âsick roleâ is the principle of nonculpability. The sick person is a victim, not a criminal. He is not to be held responsible and punished for his illness, whether that illness is typhoid fever, which can infect others and kill them, or schizophrenia, which can also produce behavior that kills others. That is all true in the sick room. But not in the courtroom and, for that matter, not in the mind of the ordinary person.
Unfortunately, at the same time that psychiatrists were continuing to defend the nonculpability inherent in the sick role, psychiatry was vastly expanding the definition of mental illness. The population of those with some symptoms of mental illness came to include the majority. Still, the courts, in order to secure a society of law, had to defend the idea of a populace acting voluntarily and freely, therefore responsible for their actions. How could the courts do that, when almost everybody was now assumed to be a little sick?
When confronted with this dangerous contradiction in definition and purpose, two distinguished students of human behavior articulated two opposing, and equally unmanageable, solutions. One decided that there was no such thing as mental illness. And the other announced that there was no such thing as human freedom.
In 1961 Thomas Szasz published his immensely influential book, The Myth of Mental Illness, and became a hero of both the libertarian Right and the libertarian Left, who shared his anti-authoritarian and antiestablishment sentiments. In this book, as the title suggests, Szasz denied the very existence of a population of the mentally ill.
The 1960s was a period that chose to romanticize the insane as saner than the rest of us, as demonstrated in such movies as The King of Hearts and One Flew over the Cuckooâs Nest. It took a long time for the liberal supporters of Szasz to realize that if you deny the validity of mental illness, the only proper place for a schizophrenic man dangerous to others was a prisonâas Szasz, himself, would state.
At the other extreme was the brilliant psychologist B. F. Skinner. In his influential book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, published in 1971, Skinner denied the very existence of freedom, thus any voluntary action. In his image of human behavior, the adult is tied to his past by connecting bonds of conditioned responses
that force him into predictable and patterned responses. Skinner thus links Homo sapiens to the lowest living creatures in one seamless continuum. Autonomy is a myth that human beings perpetuate about themselves to narcissistically assert their superiority to lower animals.
Nevertheless, most of us are prepared to accept both: a concept of human freedom, with its element of accountability for action; and a category of the mentally ill, who being sick must not be held fully responsible for their behavior. Simple prudence must be exercised. Both constructs, autonomy and mental illness, need a little pruning at the edges. And if we approach the problem with a clear head, we can allow these contradictory theories of human behavior to coexist. In certain contexts we must assume one, while in other contexts we are obliged to accept the alternative.
Obviously, Colin Ferguson and Rashid Baz are not normal variants of their cultures. They are individuals obsessed with hatred. Their behavior is clearly pathological. They would undeniably be diagnosed as mentally ill by a modern psychiatristâas would be the murderers of Matthew Shepard, the Oklahoma City bombers, and the men who chained James Byrd, Jr., to the back of a truck, dragging him to his death.
All âmental illnessâ cannot be a free ticket to exoneration. âTo understand all is to forgive allâ is not an operative principle except in the psychiatristâs officeâin the context of medicineâwhere the patient is granted certain special privileges and understanding. Inherent in the definition of the âsick roleâ is the principle of nonculpability. The sick person is a victim, not a criminal. He is not to be held responsible and punished for his illness, whether that illness is typhoid fever, which can infect others and kill them, or schizophrenia, which can also produce behavior that kills others. That is all true in the sick room. But not in the courtroom and, for that matter, not in the mind of the ordinary person.
Unfortunately, at the same time that psychiatrists were continuing to defend the nonculpability inherent in the sick role, psychiatry was vastly expanding the definition of mental illness. The population of those with some symptoms of mental illness came to include the majority. Still, the courts, in order to secure a society of law, had to defend the idea of a populace acting voluntarily and freely, therefore responsible for their actions. How could the courts do that, when almost everybody was now assumed to be a little sick?
When confronted with this dangerous contradiction in definition and purpose, two distinguished students of human behavior articulated two opposing, and equally unmanageable, solutions. One decided that there was no such thing as mental illness. And the other announced that there was no such thing as human freedom.
In 1961 Thomas Szasz published his immensely influential book, The Myth of Mental Illness, and became a hero of both the libertarian Right and the libertarian Left, who shared his anti-authoritarian and antiestablishment sentiments. In this book, as the title suggests, Szasz denied the very existence of a population of the mentally ill.
The 1960s was a period that chose to romanticize the insane as saner than the rest of us, as demonstrated in such movies as The King of Hearts and One Flew over the Cuckooâs Nest. It took a long time for the liberal supporters of Szasz to realize that if you deny the validity of mental illness, the only proper place for a schizophrenic man dangerous to others was a prisonâas Szasz, himself, would state.
At the other extreme was the brilliant psychologist B. F. Skinner. In his influential book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, published in 1971, Skinner denied the very existence of freedom, thus any voluntary action. In his image of human behavior, the adult is tied to his past by connecting bonds of conditioned responses
that force him into predictable and patterned responses. Skinner thus links Homo sapiens to the lowest living creatures in one seamless continuum. Autonomy is a myth that human beings perpetuate about themselves to narcissistically assert their superiority to lower animals.
Nevertheless, most of us are prepared to accept both: a concept of human freedom, with its element of accountability for action; and a category of the mentally ill, who being sick must not be held fully responsible for their behavior. Simple prudence must be exercised. Both constructs, autonomy and mental illness, need a little pruning at the edges. And if we approach the problem with a clear head, we can allow these contradictory theories of human behavior to coexist. In certain contexts we must assume one, while in other contexts we are obliged to accept the alternative.
Obviously, Colin Ferguson and Rashid Baz are not normal variants of their cultures. They are individuals obsessed with hatred. Their behavior is clearly pathological. They would undeniably be diagnosed as mentally ill by a modern psychiatristâas would be the murderers of Matthew Shepard, the Oklahoma City bombers, and the men who chained James Byrd, Jr., to the back of a truck, dragging him to his death.
Similar Books
