The famous Hungarian-American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, one of the founders of the anti-psychiatry movement, pointed out decades ago foundational issues in the field of mental health that still plague the industry to this day. One of his most enduring contributions was in the area of family systems, where Szasz coined the term “the struggle for definition.” He used this term to describe the process whereby family members define labels and then develop narratives based on those labels to lower the position of certain family members in the domestic pecking order.
According to Szasz, this is often done by a parent to maintain power or to elevate the status of a favorite child. In this way, roles that can last a lifetime are programmed and defined.
