ABSTRACT
I have been asked to write an essay about how the medicalization of madness risks, or may even insure, our turning away from important social phenomena that are an integral part of the labeling or construction of aberrant thought and behavior. Because I believe that everything can be better understood by understanding its history, I elect, first, to tell the reader some of my history both to situate my ideas in the context of a life and to establish my credibility in the readers’ eyes. After all, if medical neuroscience holds the key to understanding mental illness, then there is no reason to read my arguments against that view unless my insights are derived from a set of experiences that informs an opinion worth reading.
