Several psychologists have questioned whether the traditional classification of mental illness is valid. Elliot Aronson says that people who behave strangely aren’t necessarily mentally ill. We can all act irrationally in extraordinary circumstances. Social psychologists Asch, Milgrom, and Zimbardo show how our actions are influenced by conformity pressures even if they seem insane. Based on their findings, Aronson concluded that ‘People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy’. Aronson argued that rather than being unusual, sometimes a ‘crazy’ reaction is only inevitable in dealing with an exceptional situation, relieving cognitive dissonance. He was first aware of this after the shocking events of Kent State University in 1970 where four students were killed and several others wounded during protests. Public opinion and members of the National Guard justified the shooting by making apparently ‘psychotic’ and unrealistic claims that the protesting students had lived a life of debauchery, despite the fact they clearly did not deserve such treatment.
Mind and brain
In many cultures around this world, there is the view that humans have a soul that exists independently of the physical body. For Greek philosophers, the soul was also viewed as the seat of our reasoning abilities - what we would call our minds today. While Aristotle...
