@article {Brassington120, author = {I M Brassington}, title = {Actions, causes, and psychiatry: a reply to Szasz}, volume = {28}, number = {2}, pages = {120--123}, year = {2002}, doi = {10.1136/jme.28.2.120}, publisher = {Institute of Medical Ethics}, abstract = {In a recent paper, it was argued forcefully by Thomas Szasz that it is crucial to the scientific credibility of psychiatry that it abandon talk of the behaviour of the mentally {\textquotedblleft}ill{\textquotedblright} in terms of causes: such behaviour is not caused by their condition{\textemdash}it simply has reasons, which are discounted by the medical model. It is argued in this paper that Szasz{\textquoteright}s theory is incomplete for two reasons: first, in assuming that reasons are radically different from causes, it cannot account for the possibility that {\textquotedblleft}sane{\textquotedblright} behaviour might be just as much caused as {\textquotedblleft}insane{\textquotedblright}; and second, it tacitly assumes that the origin of behaviour always lies with the agent{\textemdash}a view that arguably is an accident of grammar. Hence while there is no mental illness, this is because there is nothing that could be ill{\textemdash}and this means that there is no such thing as mental {\textquotedblleft}health{\textquotedblright} either.}, issn = {0306-6800}, URL = {https://jme.bmj.com/content/28/2/120}, eprint = {https://jme.bmj.com/content/28/2/120.full.pdf}, journal = {Journal of Medical Ethics} }