Mental Health Myths: Mental Health Issues/Illnesses Don't Exist

It’s hard to believe that in this day and age people still don’t believe that mental health issues can exist even though a quick internet search will direct you to millions of results all with evidence pointing towards the fact that they do exist. These people love to let you know that mental health issues are a social construct, it’s evidence that people need God, society has made them up as an excuse for people’s behaviours, it’s the result of fast food and screens, people are just doing it for attention, it’s a result of the person having not being mentally strong enough to overcome challenges … the list could go on and on. It’s safe to say that these people don’t have any lived experience when it comes to mental health issues either personally or as a carer for a loved one. This is despite (according to The Australian Institute of Health and Well being) that an estimated 1 in 5 adults and 1 in 7 children and adolescents (aged 4-17 years) have experienced/are currently experiencing a mental disorder/illness.

This myth didn’t just come out of thin air and can be traced back to the sociologist Thomas Szasz who published many books with his first in 1961 being The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. In this book, Szasz argued that mental illnesses are indirect forms of communication and therefore they can’t be classed as diseases or illnesses. This began the argument that mental illnesses don’t exist and for many people, they take the argument literally as in mental health issues don’t exist at all. But a deeper look shows that Szasz didn’t deny that people can’t have mental health difficulties, but he preferred not to class them under the term’s illnesses or diseases, but he instead classed them as ‘problems in living’. This was due to his argument that diseases and illnesses were clearly understood and fit within strict parameters, but mental illnesses couldn’t which meant they shouldn’t be classed as such.

Szasz wasn’t against psychiatrists or their role in helping those with ‘problems in living’ as he called them and he agreed that they had a place within the treatment of mental illnesses, but the relationship should be changed to one of consensual contact, not of coercion (during this time people with mental health issues were often locked away with minimal rights this will be explored in more detail in a later post). Szasz also argued that psychiatrists cannot claim that only they have the expertise to treat and help people experiencing ‘problems in living’ since according to him family members, friends, clergymen, mental health professionals, physicians, drugs, and religion could all play a part in helping those with their ‘problems in living’.

 The origin of this myth isn’t based on the reality that there are no such things as mental illnesses/mental health issues. Szasz never once denied that mental illnesses don’t exist, he agreed that people experience things that impact their brains and their behaviour. He just wanted these things to be called something else.

Of course, this is just one take on the theory that mental illnesses don’t exist with many other professionals over the years giving their own opinions around them, but this is where the theory that mental health issues don’t exist originated from.

Reference list

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024). Prevalence and impact of mental illness. [online] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Available at: https://www.aihw.gov.au/mental-health/overview/prevalence-and-impact-of-mental-illness.

Benning, T.B. (2016). No such thing as mental illness? Critical reflections on the major ideas and legacy of Thomas Szasz. BJPsych Bulletin, [online] 40(6), pp.292–295. doi: https://doi.org/10.1192/pb.bp.115.053249 .

Goh, D. (2023). Mental health A social construct or a biological reality. Journal of Mental Health and Aging, [online] 7(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.35841/aajptsm-7.2.138 .

Rössler, W. (2016). The stigma of mental disorders. EMBO Reports, [online] 17(9), pp.1250–1253. doi: https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201643041 .