The Doors of Mental Illness
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 1980
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
British academic lawyer Professor Sir Ian Kennedy explores the concepts of modern medicine in the fifth Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Unmasking Medicine'.
In this lecture entitled 'The Doors of Mental Illness', Professor Kennedy explores the concepts of mental illness. Professor Kennedy questions the responsibility and power placed in the hands of medical experts and evaluates how mental differences are treated in society. He considers what mental health really is and demonstrates the shaky ground that the concept of mental illness rests on. Is it a medical complaint or is it a judgement created by society to highlight abnormalities?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures. |
| 0:04.3 | This lecture in the series Unmasking Medicine given by Ian Kennedy |
| 0:08.0 | was originally broadcast in 1980. |
| 0:11.8 | George says he's going to kill himself. |
| 0:14.4 | What should we do? |
| 0:16.0 | Should we express concern? |
| 0:18.1 | Should we do more? |
| 0:19.2 | And if so, what more? |
| 0:26.3 | Is George ill? Is George mentally ill? Bill believes quite wrongly that the inland revenue is pursuing a vendetta against him. He leaves |
| 0:31.9 | home and family and begins to wander around, living rough. What should we do? Should we try to persuade him to see someone, |
| 0:39.9 | and if so, whom should he see? And if he says, no, what then? Is Bill ill? Is Bill mentally ill? |
| 0:49.7 | Tom believes that this country's problems will be solved only if immigrants from the new Commonwealth countries are caused to leave. |
| 0:57.3 | He makes speeches regularly and publishes a monthly newsletter which pursues this theme. |
| 1:02.8 | What should we do about Tom? Is he ill? Is Tom mentally ill? |
| 1:09.5 | These questions are among the more taxing we face in our modern society. |
| 1:13.9 | Any answers must draw on our sense of right and wrong, of propriety, of normality, of order, |
| 1:21.3 | of law and authority, and perhaps most significant, our sense of freedom and responsibility, |
| 1:27.1 | especially our sense of freedom and responsibility, especially our sense of freedom and responsibility. |
| 1:31.0 | At what point does caring become controlling? |
| 1:34.9 | At what point does freedom become dangerous? |
| 1:38.0 | This, to me, is what is involved in any examination of mental illness. |
| 1:42.6 | As I search for an answer, keep in mind that these are practical problems. |
... |
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