Szasz on the nature of delusions in "Szasz and his Critics"

[Rupert]

Thomas Szasz was a professional psychiatrist who held that mental illness does not exist (the phenomena that we label as "mental illness" are real, but they do not correspond to any known biological lesion and as such should not be labeled "illnesses") and also that there should be a strict separation of psychiatry and the state.

In the volume "Szasz and his Critics", responding to Bentall's essay "Schizophrenia as construed by Szasz and the neo-Kraepelinians", Szasz writes

"I do not regard hallucinations and delusions as 'symptoms' requiring 'treatment'. I view hallucinations as disowned self-conversations and delusions as stubborn errors or lies. Both are created by 'patients', and could be stopped by them."

My own experience of psychosis leads me to deny that the patient has the power to have the insight that the delusions are not true at the time of the psychotic episode. But, supposing we were to run with the idea, one would presume that Szasz would have similar remarks to make about religious beliefs (whose degree of rationality he would indeed regard as similar to psychiatric delusions); those who subscribe to religious beliefs, Szasz perhaps would say, have it within their power to have the insight that they do not, in fact, have a rational foundation. This of course would lead us to the usual paradoxes about the possibility of self-deception, and the difficulty of making sense of those who literally gave their lives for their religious beliefs.