Jonathan Miller said this-
I hold all contemporary psychiatric approaches – all ‘mental health’ methods – as basically flawed because they search for solutions along medical-technical lines. But solutions forwhat? For life! But life is not a problem to be solved. Life is something to be lived, as intelligently, as competently, as well as we can, day in and day out. Life is something we must endure. There is no solution for it.
Miller J [Ed] Ch 15. Objections to Psychiatry: Dialogue with Thomas Szasz States of Mind:
Conversations with Psychological Investigators London: British Broadcasting Corporation 1983, p.290, Quoted in this really good article, ‘The mythical self, we make ourselves up as we speak’- here.
Amen Jonathan. Amen.
this fragile tent 
You need to read some good old philosophy books Chris… and on how reality is constructed… within western thought the greeks had it pegged and in Eastern thought I’d check out the Buddha…
the spanner, here however is the GOD principle and when the big guy say’s who he it turns all the constructs upside down.. where here and now is not to be endured… but understood.
Essentially he’s correct on psychiatry and the medical model it is seriously flawed based on their ontological view of reality.. that it is measurable, controllable and predictable, which influences their epistemology and methodology.
I once heard a talk from a similar existentialist, who had been working on the peace process in the middle east, discuss a very similar thought process… on religion.
and his summary on religion was spot on.. he just couldnt get the transcendental nature of spirituality however. That aspect has to be experienced and it throws ‘meaning’ out with the bathwater along with tradition and ritual.
Personally what I experienced in one day Ive spent the last 28 years trying to figure out… Up down sideways and reversed.. but it still too big
It should be ‘amen Tom’, not Jonathan, since it was Thomas Szasz who made this wise coment about the ‘problem’ of life, so many moons ago.
Resp[ectfully
Phil Barker and Poppy Buchanan-Barker
I stand corrected Phil, and remember well Szasz from my old Sociology days!
Cheers
Chris