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I believe the strange behaviour and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a psychotic episode are ultimately understandable and done as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. We must look closely at the role of society, and particularly the family, in the development of madness. Individuals can often be put in impossible situations, where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a 'lose-lose situation' and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned. Madness is therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and transformative experience.
I see psychopathology as being seated in the social cradle, the urban home, which cultivates it, the very crucible in which selves are forged. This re-evaluation of the locus of the disease process-- and consequent shift in forms of treatment-- is perhaps now more than ever, in stark contrast to psychiatric orthodoxy.
My research in linking development of psychosis to family background, has been controversial, despite supporting evidence. The influence of parents who feel 'blamed' for a child's diagnosis of schizophrenia account for most of my unpopularity in many circles. It was an inappropriate attribution by commentators who had not grasped the breadth of my view of the nature of pathogenesis in families, I always maintained throughout my career that parents are equally mystified, and unaware of the disturbed nature of their patterns of communication.
Scholars say I was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic behaviour and speech as a valid expression of distress, albeit wrapped in an enigmatic language of personal symbolism which is meaningfull only from within their situation. I believe, if a therapist can better understand his or her patient, the therapist can begin to make sense of the symbolism of the patient's madness, and therefore start addressing the concerns which are the root cause of the distress.
I never denied the existence of mental illness, but simply viewed it in a radically different light from my contemporaries. For me, madness can be a transformative episode whereby the process of undergoing mental distress is like a shamanic journey. The traveller to madness can return from the journey with important insights, and may even have become a wiser and more grounded person as a result.
For most of my life I was a critic of psychiatric diagnosis, because the diagnosis of a mental disorder contradicted accepted medical procedure: diagnosis was made on the basis of behavior or conduct, and examination and ancillary tests that traditionally precede diagnosis of viable pathologies like broken bones or pneumonia, occurred after (if at all) the diagnosis of mental disorder. Hence, psychiatry was founded on a false epistemology: illness diagnosed by conduct but treated biologically.
I also wrote several books.
