Psycho-Bizarreness Theory: A Rational, Anti-psychiatric Theory of Madness

No theory is more emblematic of the modern crisis in psychopathology than the brain-disease model of schizophrenia. Theories that posit neurological origins for schizophrenia ignore the significant percentage of patients who display no brain abnormality or who recover without drugs. Psycho-Bizarreness Theory (PBT), detailed in this article, as well as in a recent book [1], is a new non-neurological theory of madness that views schizophrenia and other bizarre behaviors, such as criminal insanity and neurosis, as rational coping mechanisms. Certain people, in the face of intolerable stress, will unconsciously adopt a bizarre behavior precisely tailored to neutralize their stressor and to block stress-related thoughts. Their brain abnormalities serve primarily as sources of stress, not of disease. Thus, by abandoning the deterministic axiomatic assumption, common to all theories of traditional theories of psychopathology, and adopting the idea that madness is a rational coping mechanism, rather than a mental or neurological disease, the new theory is able to integrate the seemingly incompatible data, obtained by rival theories in this field, into one coherent theoretical system.