ABSTRACT
Irving Goffman argued that all of the behaviours, the delusions and hallucinations etc., observed as being symptomatic of psychoses and Schizophrenia existed in the world of the non-psychotic. Writers from within the mainstream of psychiatry such as Clare have been more scathing in their criticism of Laing, a criticism that it must be said Laing invited by his own harsh polemicism. The central thrust of T. S. Szasz’ argument was that the concept of ‘mental illness’ was a metaphor, a myth that had incorrectly gained the status of established fact. Thomas Scheff argued that by decontextualisng ‘mad’ behaviour and seeing it purely in terms of the organic, the meaning of the behaviour became lost and denigrated by being defined as meaningless. However, events have overtaken Scheff as they have Laing, Goffman and Szasz, and diagnostic criteria and evidence for the appropriateness of an organic approach have advanced in the intervening decades.
