Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: A Crime Against Humanity Analysis

In Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: A Crime Against Humanity, Thomas Szasz takes a stand in the Anti-Psychiatric movement of the 1960’s and argues that involuntary psychiatric commitment is a crime against humanity because it deprives people from controlling their own lives which is a violation of human rights. In addition, Szasz argues that personal freedom and autonomy are more important rights for humans even than their apparent well-being. Hence, the government has no right to interfere in anyone’s life even if they are supposedly looking for their well-being.

Szasz then proceeds to challenge the critics’ claims. Critics claim that Involuntary Patient Commitment (IPC) benefits those suffering from mental illness. However, Szasz argues that although there are mental abnormalities there is no such thing as mental illness. Does abnormality makes human ill? Szasz claims that “mental illness” is a metaphorical construction used to exercise political power over the abnormal. Moreover, Szasz argues that IPC does not benefit patients who obtain poor medical care but rather the people surrounding the mentally abnormal because psychiatric institutions isolate and contain mental abnormalities rather than treating them.

Thereafter, Szasz argues that moral evidence dictates the wrongs of IPC. Morally, every individual owns his own body. We have autonomy and freedom to decide what is best for us. Thus, no treatment should be administered without informed consent.

On the other hand, Critics move to claim that IPC is administered to protect us from the mentally ill. Szasz counters this argument by stating that mental illness ought to be meaningful only in the context of a voluntary Dr./Patient relationship. Furthermore, Szasz claims that going this route would put us in a slippery slope, where people could take advantage of the system for their own gain. For example, a rapist and murderer who kills and rapes might argue and act like a mentally abnormal person to free himself from going to prison and going into a mental institution instead. Even Psychiatrist might abuse the system by declaring mentally competent individuals as mentally abnormal in order to have more patients and thus make more profit.

Finally, Szasz claims that our historical evidence demonstrates that mental illness tends to be over diagnosed. Mental illness, according to Szasz, is an ideology that allows a social class to dominate another one. IPC is an equivalent of slavery that allows the most powerful social classes to contain the undesirable lower classes and enslave them. In New Jersey, for example, two sex offenders claimed to be mentally ill to be sent to a mental facility rather than prison. They claimed they were not responsible for their action because of their abnormalities. However, they were denied their claims and were sent to prison. 17 years later, after serving their time in jail, they were now declared legally mentally ill and were about to be put in a mental facility. This shows the class clash between the higher elite classes who prefer not to have sex offenders in the streets and take advantage of the system, rather unfairly, to enslave and imprison some people.

Even though Szasz is a Psychiatrist himself, he opposes the approach that most psychiatrists are taking. He claims that since he is a psychiatrist himself, he knows the faults of the system and understands those flaws very well. How are patients supposed to get better if the main purpose of psychiatric care is just to isolate and contain psychiatric abnormalities? Certainly not with Involuntary Patient Commitment (IPC).