Consciousness, Neo-Idealism and the Myth of Mental Illness

Abstract

Over a long career in the psychiatric profession spanning six decades, Thomas Szasz has forcefully argued that mental illnesses are mythical since all medical diseases are located in the body and, thus, have somatic causes. This has been accompanied by a scathing and coruscating critique of the whole mental health profession, particularly those psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists who collude in and exploit the alleged mythology of counterfeit mental disorders and often (unwittingly or deliberately) justify coercion, oppression, and pharmacological manipulation of so-called ‘mental patients’ in the name of ‘treatments’. Although there has been a measure of support for this approach in recent years – especially the emphasis on the social context of mental illness and the complexity of mind/body dualism – the main thesis has tended to be misunderstood and undervalued. However, recent critiques of the scientific materialist paradigm within philosophy of mind and consciousness studies can help to illuminate the key arguments in this sphere and provide a foundation for work in the mental health field. After examining the main tenets of Szasz’s thesis, the work of neo-idealist philosophers and scientists such as Kastrup, Hoffman, and McGilchrist will be utilised to present an alternative re-imagining of the central problems. The neo-idealist concept of consciousness as an ultimate primitive, combined with the work of McGilchrist on the ways in which the divided brain serves to shape reality, can be utilised to produce a perspective on mental health and illness supported by a solid foundation in neuroscience and philosophy of mind.