But Szasz would say that even severe disorders like paranoid-schizophrenia, psychosis etc. are all 'choices' in some sense, not diseases.
My reading of Szasz was that no such thing as 'mental illness' does exist, being merely a metaphorical judgement of behaviour; and moreover that most of the diseases have often zero physical evidence, change arbitrarily, disappearing, reappearing etc; and he thinks that these diseases (or most of them) are really just a way for psychiatrists to try out their pet theory, sometimes at the expense or even imprisonment of non-violent people; and that the government encourages this because it wants publicity/'good works' and an expanded control over intellectuals, the medical profession and the resources and jobs the State funds into these institutions. Historically diagnosis was at least as unscientific as today, and used against political enemies for one thing; likewise minor criminals could spend years or a lifetime locked up in those such as appeared in England and America. Szasz advocates self-medication, that is to say that an individual may freely choose his treatment plan, or (of course) designate such decisions to others. This amounts, by the way, for a total decriminalization and deregulation of medicine, including all pharmaceutical products and so forth.
Although he rejects mental illness on definitional and evidential ground, he does not oppose therapy, drug support, psychoanalysis etc; and he mentions his anti-prohibition/prescription stance in connection to this.
Though I have read only a couple of Szasz' books and articles, I consciously noticed liberal views and references, and it seemed to me that to deny mental illness on definitional grounds (your mental existence can never be 'ill', which is not to say that he disbelieves in brain lesions of reductionism; he explains that mental illness is diagnosed behaviourally rather than physically and more than behaviour can not be meaningfully treated as suffering a real physical or medical illness. For if you judge someone is 'crazy' when do you decide who isn't crazy and what isn't a disease? Whoever does it, all they are doing is contrasting their preferences and behaviour standards with that of another person. But the fact that there is no logical standard for diagnosing such 'mental illness' reveals a picture much closer to Soviet insane asylums than the imaginary 'madhouses'.
