The metaphor of mental illness.

According to some Mental illness is a metaphor (metaphorical disease). The

word “disease” denotes a demonstrable biological

process that affects the bodies of living organisms (plants,

animals, and humans). The term “mental illness” refers to

the undesirable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons. Classifying thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying the

whale as a fish. As the whale is not a fish, mental illness

is not a disease. Individuals with brain diseases (bad

brains) or kidney diseases (bad kidneys) are literally sick.

Individuals with mental diseases (bad behaviors), like

societies with economic diseases (bad fiscal policies), are

metaphorically sick. The classification of (mis)behavior as

illness provides an ideological justification for state-sponsored social control as medical treatment.

Source: Thomas Szasz,   The Meaning of Mind: Language, Morality, and Neuroscience (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996); The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (New York: Harper and Row, 1974).

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