830:352
 
Social and Legal Aspects of Mental Health

Fall 2005

Instructor: Bill Tucker           btucker@camden.rutgers.edu                          Office: 225-6545
Office: Armitage 345                                                                                   Home: 354-0119
Office hours: Monday & Wednesday, 6:00-7:00 PM                                   Department: 225-6520

Course Description:

This course is not in psychology as much as it is on psychology.  It will focus on the following three major areas of social and legal controversy in the field of “mental health”:

     •  What is the meaning of the term “mental illness” and who is diagnosed as “mentally ill?”  Should this designation be taken literally, i.e., as an actual medical condition of some kind?  If not, what purpose does it serve?  What constitutes a “cure” for mental illness and how is it achieved?
     •  Who winds up in mental hospitals and what sort of “treatment” do they receive?  What is the basis and the justification for involuntary commitment of persons to mental institutions?
     •  What role does/should mental illness play in criminal proceedings?  What is the basis of the “not guilty by reason of insanity” plea?  Should it be changed?

Evaluation:

     Grade in the course will be based on two exams and a final paper, these three data points equally weighted.  In marginal cases my judgment of your classroom “assistance” will be the determining factor.


Reading:  There are no books required.  All assignments are articles or chapters available on electronic reserve.

 

                                                                     CLASS SCHEDULE

    Date         Class Topic                                                 Reading

Sep7
 Introduction to the course

Sep12
Who does "mental health" work?
What do they do?
 from Szasz Ideology and Insanity:
     "Mental Health as Ideology"
     "What Psychiatry Can and Cannot Do"

Sep14
 Metaphors and mental health
from Society (May/June 1994):
     Szasz, "Mental Illness is Still a Myth"
from Saks, Refusing Care:
     "Mental Illness: Making Myths or Genuine Disorders?"

Sep19
 The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
 from Kutchins & Kirk, Making Us Crazy:
     "Pathologizing Everyday Behavior"

Sep21
 Personality Disorders
from Individual Psychology (September 1992):
     Nikelly, "The Pleonexic Personality"
from NUVUPSY (online discussion group):
     Smoller, "The Etiology and Treatment of Childhood"

Sep26
 Mental health and women
 from Kutchins & Kirk, Making Us Crazy:
     "The Defeat of Masochistic Personality Disorder"

Sep28
 Mental health and sex
 from Kutchins & Kirk, Making Us Crazy:
     "The Fall and Rise of Homosexuality"

Oct3
Oct5
Oct10
 Addictions, physical and psychological
 from Lancet (1972): Szasz,
     "Bad Habits Are Not Diseases"
from Peele and Brodsky, The Truth About Add & Recovery:
     "Which is the Most Addictive Drug of  All
from Szasz, A Lexicon of Lunacy:
     "The Ethics of Addiction"
from Peele, The Diseasing of America:
     "The Addiction Treatment Industry"
from Schaef, Co-Dependence:
     "Co-dependence: A Disease Within the Addictive Process"
     "The Characteristics of Co-Dependence"
from Peele and Brodsky, The Truth About Add & Recovery:
     "Addictions to Gambling, Shopping, and Exercise"

Oct12
 First Exam

Oct17
Oct19
 Factitious Disorders
 from Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (1985) :
     Meropol et al, "Factitious Illness: An Exploration in Illness"
from Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic (1992):
     Schreier, "The Perversion of Mothering: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy"

Oct24
Oct26
 Recovered Memories
from Terr, Unchained Memories:
     "Ringside Seats at an Old Murder"
     "Expert Witness for the Prosecution"
from Ofshe Making Monsters:
     "The Murder, the Witness, and the Psychiatrist"
     "Two Cases of Hypnotic Story Creation"

Oct31
Nov2
 Schizophrenia
 from Torrey, Surviving Schizophrenia:
     "The Inner World of Madness: View from the Inside
     "The Diagnosis of Schizophrenia: View from the Outside"
from Slater, Welcome to My Country:
     "Some Kind of Cleansing"

Nov7
 The "pseudo-patient" study
 from Science (1973):
     Rosenhan, "On Being Sane in Insane Places"

Nov9
Nov14
 Involuntary confinement
 from Saks, Refusing Care:
     "Civil Commitment: How Civil?"
from Szasz, A Lexicon of Lunacy:
     "The Illusion of Mental Patients' Rights"
     "The Psychiatric Will"

Nov16
 Field Trip

Nov21
 Second Exam

Nov22
NB: Tuesday
 Film: Titicut Follies

Nov28
 Crime and insanity Individual cases

Nov30
 History of the NGRI plea
 Individual cases

Dec5
  John Hinckley
from Newsweek (Sep 20, 1982):
     Hinckley, "The Insanity Defense and Me"
from Readers Digest (Match 1983):
     Hinckley & Hinckley, "Illness is the Culprit"
from Caplan, The Insanity Def & the Trial of John Hinckley:
     various excerpts

Dec7
 Theodore Kaczynski
from Atlantic Monthly (June 2000):
     Chase, "Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber"

Dec12
 Conclusion

Final Paper is due on Friday December 16th