Psychiatry

So long as men denounce each other as mentally sick (homosexual, addicted, insane, and so forth)—so that the madman can always be considered the Other, never the Self—mental illness will remain an easily exploitable concept, and Coercive Psychiatry a flourishing institution.

There are two basic kinds of impersonations: those that are publicly supported and those that are not. Examples of the former are an actor playing a part in a play or a small boy playing fireman. Examples of the latter are a healthy housewife complaining of aches and pains or an unemployed carpenter claiming he is Jesus. When persons stubbornly cling to and aggressively proclaim publicly unsupported role definitions, they are called psychotic.

Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual practice they deal with personal, social and ethical problems in living.