Abstract

With the publication of Seth Farber's first book, he has established himself as the most profound and provocative writer on the subject of madness since the death of R.D. Laing. Of course, neither Laing nor Farber could have formulated their counter-cultural interpretation of madness had they not first read and assimilated the writings of Thomas Szasz whose self-proclaimed disdain for the counter-culture and apparent disinterest in the question of the nature of madness, did not prevent him from single-handedly initiating the scientific revolution which cast the construct of mental illness into intellectual disrepute, and consequently made it possible to consider the next logical question: If madness is not mental illness, then what is it?