Szasz….

Assuming the Affirmative doesn’t provide a definition of CMI in the 1AC, I would imagine you could just provide a Counter Interp which would de-link you from Szasz or turn the K. I’d argue that the Negative makes assumptions about the Affirmatives conception of what CMI means, and then turn the K on them. Besides that, you’d probably just have to straight turn Szasz.

Do some very basic Google research, eg., General Topic: “mental illness,” and Specific word/phrase: “recovery.” Also Google: “mental illness can be cured,” or any statement like that.

There’s a TON (sorry, Nick) of easily-accessible evidence showing that (a) mental illness “exists” (and is physiological in many instances – as demonstrated by SSRI-research and/or TBI-research); and, (b) mental illness is treatable/manageable… with lots of well-documented, empirical, double-blind, “evidence-based” data.

Szasz’s stuff is interesting and superficially persuasive, but it is 50 years old – and has been thoroughly de-bunked in the medical literature for at least four decades. Losing to Szasz is like losing to the dreaded “States CP.” It’s possible, but only if a debater is not inspired enough to hit the books for half a day.

As I mentioned earlier, I ran a version of the Szasz K at camp and didn’t lose a single round where I went for it. That doesn’t mean the argument itself is unbeatable, it just means debaters in the midwest haven’t had much exposure to the K.

My thoughts.

First, as Danny points out, it’s possible to run this argument as a “K in disguise” – run it like a K but don’t call it a K. You can get away with it because Szasz is, obviously, incredibly topic-specific. Is it a good idea? Not necessarily, it depends very much on who the judge is. Adaptation is critical to running this argument. At the camp tournament, I asked one of my judges before the round if he was okay with the K. His response was that he didn’t want to listen to anything that was, quote unquote, “academically irresponsible.” That was a pretty good indicator to put that particular expando away.

I think the argument functions strongest when it is run as a true criticism. (I might make a blog post explaining how to run K’s in LD sometime next week – look for that). While it’s possible to run individual turns using Szasz cards, the problem is that you can’t win unless you change the underlying framework of the debate. At camp I used an epistemology framework; that is, we must consider the authenticity of the knowledge we base our actions upon before we can act – action derived from flawed knowledge is itself flawed. That puts the question of whether mental illness is real or a lie at the forefront of the debate and automatically puts you in control.

Also, Danny’s suggestion about an aff centered around Szasz – simply banning all mental health services – is something you will see this year. That’s why I hate the word ‘reform’ in the resolution…it makes it bidirectional.

Answering Szasz – this is just a generic starting point, it’s not comprehensive. These were some of the answers I read at camp, and I actually beat the K both times it was run against me.

- First, you need to engage the framework of the debate. This is critical. Win that pragmatism should be evaluated first. You need to argue that even if there are flaws in the way we construct mental illness, the physical symptoms of the mentally ill justify attempts to treat them.

- You need to win that there ARE tangible impacts to mental illness. When someone commits suicide due to depression, that is not a rhetorical gimmick. Suicide is not a social construct, it is a universal negative that exists outside the social frame. There may be a couple of hacks like Schopenhauer who claim that suffering is good, but they are the exception. Szasz denies the reality of human suffering.

- Argue that alternatives to the system fail. Alternatives will vary, but generally they involve either a rejection of the psychiatric system or a mindset shift. Argue that these can’t be fiated. Also have offense for why these alternatives are worse than the status quo/plan.

- Have a permutation. Find evidence that indicates that we can reconceptualize how we view mental illness while still working to treat physical symptoms. Szasz doesn’t do a good job of explaining how these are mutually exclusive.

- If your aff involves voluntary treatment, and not institutionalization, you can argue that the alternative would eliminate consensual treatment between a patient and doctor. Szasz himself argues that autonomy, i.e. making decisions for oneself, overrides all other restrictions on care. To do otherwise is to infringe upon people’s freedom to give or receive help, a violation of human rights.

- If you want a cheap trick, argue that the alternative is topical because it “reforms the provision of mental health services to the CMI” and couple that with topical counter-proposals bad theory.

There are a ton of other potential answers that you can find if you look through the literature. I don’t think Szasz will be in 99% of rounds this year. It was barely in 5% of rounds at camp, and to my knowledge only two debaters (myself and Thomas Stoecklein from Duquesne) ran it on a consistent basis. But it is still something you need to be prepared to answer.

Duquesne psychology pretty much helped to pioneer what’s called the human science perspective and really bring it forward over the past fifty years or so. If you dig into it, I think you’ll find a lot of interesting questions being raised, and perspectives stemming from those questions. With regards to Szasz, I’m lucky to study under a department that has a bit more of an… appreciation for his thoughts and similar thinkers than you might find elsewhere. Not that it’s all agreed to, of course, rather, that the questions themselves are important ones that deserve, and get, consideration at the very minimum.

Anyhow, every K author kind of gets butchered when applied to debate, and Szasz is no exception; just in terms of how most people tried to handle the K during the camp, and even how the camp file itself came out. Like any K, if you really want to have something more than a crap shell tossed out into a crap round, you need to hit the literature.

His thought is incredibly more in-depth than what you’re going to find in old backfiles. Read it, or don’t run it; simple as that.

@David – You’re not escaping my joyous links with that. Szasz devotes a good bit of time in his writings (I can dig up a few cites later if you’d like) to discuss the change in the labels used over time. The labels change, the way we define them change, but what they represent–in terms of both the words themselves and the power relations derived from them–are still ever present, until society wakes up a bit, realizes what’s going on, and a new term gets popped in there to give the impression of some sort of medical evolution that just took place. Anyhow, there’s enough out there in terms of possible links to make trying to get out of the K at the link level tough against all but the least knowledgeable of K debaters (though that’s honestly true for a *lot* of K’s in my opinion). Don’t try and beat the K head on at the link level; it’s fighting a pretty uphill battle.

@Michael – I’m hoping not to come off rude, but your points are pretty non-responsive, at best, to Szasz. He doesn’t preclude measurable symptoms, nor does he say that it’s impossible for “treatments” to exist.

One of the key arguments against the myth of mental illness is how disease and illness is defined (uniquely so) within the field of psychiatry; it’s late, and I know I’m not doing service to much at this point, but one of the big sticking points is that mental illness is defined by way of behavior and as he puts it “the practical problems posed by these behaviors.”

Beyond that though, is the element of power and the relations formed between psychiatrist and patient. These are the questions that are absolutely key to Szasz’s thought, and they are the questions your responses fail to even acknowledge, let alone respond to.

Furthermore, the relative age of his ideas has no bearing on things; and finally, his arguments and concerns have been far from “debunked.” He’s been trashed, the ideas have been trashed and ignored, but that’s not the same as debunking them.

@Nick – you only won that round because I deleted a sheet full of turns . All kidding aside, I blew that one completely and it was a well-deserved loss in a thoroughly enjoyable round. Hope to hit you elsewhere (will you guys be able to make it up to GGI come October?).

Anyhow, you’re dead on about one thing; Szasz isn’t unbeatable. Nothing is; that said, it’s all about the amount of work you’re willing to put into things. There are good arguments on both sides that can be applied strategically in a round; but it’s going to take a bit more than saying “hey, hey, look! SSRI!” to get that ballot on the aff.

P.S. – For some reason, everyone calls me Thomas now; is there some sort of conspiracy going on? I kid, I kid.

At Tom: (1) I wasn’t making any “points,” except that there’s a lot of anti-Szacz literature out there. (2) And yes, you do come off as rude. I don’t know if you’re still competing; if you are, I’d work on my phraseology.

Sorry if it came off as rude to you; certainly not my intent.

Anyhow, my goal was to try and further the point that szasz can’t be dismissed as a Bad states CP. Or, for that matter, with a biological influence block as I don’t really enjoy bad rounds where I beat a kid excuse he had a fundamental misunderstanding of key concepts,

Comment got cut off, sorry. Anyhow, while there is lit that responds to Szasz, my only comment is that one should be careful with what they’re cutting.