Thomas S. Szasz's Books

The Manufacture of Madness

A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement

By: Thomas Szasz

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The Manufacture of Madness

A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement

By: Thomas Szasz

In this seminal work, Dr. Szasz examines the similarities between the Inquisition and institutional psychiatry. His purpose is to show “that the belief in mental illness and the social actions to which it leads have the same moral implications and political consequences as had the belief in witchcraft and the social actions to which it led.”

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420

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Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815604610

ISBN 13

9780815604617

Pain and Pleasure

A Study of Bodily Feelings

By: Thomas Szasz

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Pain and Pleasure

A Study of Bodily Feelings

By: Thomas Szasz

In this work Dr. Szasz dispels popular and scientific confusion about what pain and pleasure actually are. Demonstrating the doubtful value of such distinctions as “real” and Imagined” pain, or “physical” and “intellectual” pleasure, he analyses the basic concepts-psychological, philosophical, and sociological-involved in bodily feelings and discusses how these feelings are communicated. Some of the subjects discussed in Pain and Pleasure include: self-mutilation, sexual satisfaction, “hysterical anesthesia,” false pregnancy, laughter, homosexuality, and dream analysis.

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372

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815602308

ISBN 13

9780815602309

Law, Liberty and Psychiatry

An Inquiry into the Social Uses of Mental Health Practices

By: Thomas Szasz

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Law, Liberty and Psychiatry

An Inquiry into the Social Uses of Mental Health Practices

By: Thomas Szasz

1 copy located in CIRCULATION.

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308

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Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815602421

ISBN 13

9780815602422

Psychiatric Justice

By: Thomas Szasz

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Psychiatric Justice

By: Thomas Szasz

Szasz troubles the dark, still waters of psychiatry and the law. He peeps beneath the crazy quilt of federal and state procedures which render impotent the constitutional right to a speedy and public trial.

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308

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Syracuse University Press

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ISBN 10

0815602316

ISBN 13

9780815602316

Coercion as Cure

A Critical History of Psychiatry

By: Thomas Szasz

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Coercion as Cure

A Critical History of Psychiatry

By: Thomas Szasz

Understanding the history of psychiatry requires an accurate view of its function and purpose. In this provocative new study, Szasz challenges conventional beliefs about psychiatry. He asserts that, in fact, psychiatrists are not concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of bona fide illnesses. Psychiatric tradition, social expectation, and the law make it clear that coercion is the profession's determining characteristic. Psychiatrists may "diagnose" or "treat" people without their consent or even against their clearly expressed wishes, and these involuntary psychiatric interventions are as different as are sexual relations between consenting adults and the sexual violence we call "rape." But the point is not merely the difference between coerced and consensual psychiatry, but to contrast them. The term "psychiatry" ought to be applied to one or the other, but not both. As long as psychiatrists and society refuse to recognize this, there can be no real psychiatric historiography. The coercive character of psychiatry was more apparent in the past than it is now. Then, insanity was synonymous with unfitness for liberty. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a new type of psychiatric relationship developed, when people experiencing so-called "nervous symptoms," sought help. This led to a distinction between two kinds of mental diseases: neuroses and psychoses. Persons who complained about their own behavior were classified as neurotic, whereas persons about whose behavior others complained were classified as psychotic. The legal, medical, psychiatric, and social denial of this simple distinction and its far-reaching implications undergirds the house of cards that is modern psychiatry. Coercion as Cure is the most important book by Szasz since his landmark The Myth of Mental Illness.

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295

Publisher

Transaction Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1412808952

ISBN 13

9781412808958

Ideology and Insanity

Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man

By: Thomas Szasz

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Ideology and Insanity

Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man

By: Thomas Szasz

This book is a collection of the earliest essays of Thomas Szasz, in which he staked out his position on “the nature, scope, methods, and values of psychiatry.” On each of these issues, he opposed the official position of the psychiatric profession. Where conventional psychiatrists saw themselves diagnosing and treating mental illness, Szasz saw them stigmatizing and controlling persons; where they saw hospitals, Szasz saw prisons; where they saw courageous professional advocacy of individualism and freedom, Szasz saw craven support of collectivism and oppression.

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292

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Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815602561

ISBN 13

9780815602569

Feeling Good and Doing Better

Ethics and Nontherapeutic Drug Use

By: Thomas H. Murray,Willard Gaylin,Ruth Macklin

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Feeling Good and Doing Better

Ethics and Nontherapeutic Drug Use

By: Thomas H. Murray,Willard Gaylin,Ruth Macklin

The place of drugs in American society is a problem more apt to evoke diatribe than dialog. With the support of the Na tional Science Foundation's program on Ethics and Values in Science and Technology, and the National Endowment for the Humanities' program on Science, Technology, and Human Values, * The Hastings Center was able to sponsor such dialog as part of a major research into the ethics of drug use that spanned two years. We assembled a Research Group from leaders in the scientific, medical, legal, and policy com munities, leavened with experts in applied ethics, and brought them together several times a year to discuss the moral, legal and social issues posed by nontherapeutic drug use. At times we also called on other experts when we needed certain issues clarified. We did not try to reach a consensus, yet several broad areas of agreement emerged: That our society's response to nontherapeutic drug use has been irrational and inconsistent; that our attempts at control have been clumsy and ill-informed; that many complex moral values are entwined in the debate and cannot be reduced to a simple conflict between individual liberty and state paternalism. Of course each paper should be read as the statement of that particular author or authors. The views expressed in this book do not necessarily represent the views of The Hastings Center, the National Science Foundation, or the National En dowment for the Humanities.

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Page Count

221

Publisher

Springer Science & Business Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

1461251680

ISBN 13

9781461251682

Antipsychiatry

Quackery Squared

By: Thomas Szasz

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Antipsychiatry

Quackery Squared

By: Thomas Szasz

More than fifty years ago, Thomas Szasz showed that the concept of mental illness—a disease of the mind—is an oxymoron, a metaphor, a myth. Disease, in the medical sense, affects only the body. He also demonstrated that civil commitment and the insanity defense, the paradigmatic practices of psychiatry, are incompatible with the political values of personal responsibility and individual liberty. The psychiatric establishment’s rejection of Szasz’s critique posed no danger to his work: its defense of coercions and excuses as “therapy” supported his argument regarding the metaphorical nature of mental illness and the transparent immorality of brutal psychiatric control masquerading as humane medical care. In the late 1960s, the launching of the so-called antipsychiatry movement vitiated Szasz’s effort to present a precisely formulated conceptual and political critique of the medical identity of psychiatry. Led by the Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, the antipsychiatrists used the term to attract attention to themselves and to deflect attention from what they did, which included coercions and excuses based on psychiatric principles and power. For this reason, Szasz rejected, and continues to reject, psychiatry and antipsychiatry with equal vigor. Subsuming his work under the rubric of antipsychiatry betrays and negates it just as surely and effectively as subsuming it under the rubric of psychiatry. In Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared, Szasz powerfully argues that his writings belong to neither psychiatry nor antipsychiatry. They stem from conceptual analysis, social-political criticism, and common sense.

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205

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815651317

ISBN 13

9780815651314

Psychiatric Slavery

By: Thomas Szasz

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Psychiatric Slavery

By: Thomas Szasz

Re-examining psychiatric interventions from a cultural-historical and political-economic perspective, Szasz demonstrates that the main problem that faces mental health policymakers today is adult dependency. Millions of Americans, diagnosed as mentally ill, are drugged and confined by doctors for non-criminal conduct, go legally unpunished for the crimes they commit, and are supported by the state - not because they are sick, but because they are unproductive and unwanted. Obsessed with the twin beliefs that misbehaviour is a medical disorder and that the duty of the state is to protect adults from themselves, we have replaced criminal-punitive sentences with civil-therapeutic programmes. The result is the relentless loss of individual liberty and erosion of personal responsibility - symptoms of the transformation of a Constitutional Republic into a Therapeutic State, unconstrained by the rule of law.

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196

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Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815605110

ISBN 13

9780815605119

Words to the Wise

A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary

By: Thomas Szasz

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Words to the Wise

A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary

By: Thomas Szasz

The human mind abhors the absence of explanation, but full understanding is never possible. Human understanding is likely to be incomplete at best and, more often, utterly fallacious. To make matters worse, it is likely to be supported as truth and wisdom by religious and scientific authority, intellectual fashion and social convention. In Words to the Wise, Thomas Szasz offers a compendium of thoughts, observations, and aphorisms that address our understanding of a broad range of subjects, from birth to death.In this book, Szasz tackles a problem intrinsic to the human condition. What problem? In the words of the American humorist Josh Billings: ""The trouble with people is not what they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so."" Many of Thomas Szasz's books have been devoted to exposing what ""ain't so"" about mental illness and psychiatry. Here, Szasz applies the same skeptical spirit to the larger problem of people knowing much that ""ain't so."" About addiction, Szasz observes: ""If a person ingests a drug prohibited by legislators and claims that it makes him feel better, that proves he is an addict; if he ingests a drug prescribed by a psychiatrist and claims that it makes him feel better, that proves that mental illness is a biomedical disease."" About beauty: ""Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; ugliness is in the personality of the beholden."" About libertarians: ""Libertarians regard liberty as contingent on the right to property; scientists regard disease as contingent on pathological alteration of the body. All libertarians reject the notion of 'socialist liberty,' yet many accept the notion of 'mental disease.'"" Or about power: ""Many of my critics say I am hostile to medicine and physicians. They are wrong. I am hostile only to the power of the medical profession and of physicians.""Szasz notes that despite enormous social pressure for a shared perspective on how the world works and how we ought to live, every person'saunde

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237

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1351471120

ISBN 13

9781351471121

Cruel Compassion

Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted

By: Thomas Szasz

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Cruel Compassion

Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted

By: Thomas Szasz

Cruel Compassion is the capstone of Thomas Szasz's critique of psychiatric practices. Reexamining psychiatric interventions from a cultural-historical and political-economic perspective, Szasz demonstrates that the main problem that faces mental health policy makers today is adult dependency. Millions of Americans, diagnosed as mentally ill, are drugged and confined by doctors for noncriminal conduct, go legally unpunished for the crimes they commit, and are supported by the state—not because they are sick, but because they are unproductive and unwanted. Obsessed with the twin beliefs that misbehavior is a medical disorder and that the duty of the state is to protect adults from themselves, we have replaced criminal-punitive sentences with civil-therapeutic 'programs.' The result is the relentless loss of individual liberty, erosion of personal responsibility, and destruction of the security of persons and property—symptoms of the transformation of a Constitutional Republic into a Therapeutic State, unconstrained by the rule of law. Szasz shows convincingly that not until we separate therapy from coercion—much as the founders separated theology from coercion—shall we be able to get a handle on our seemingly intractable psychiatric and social problems. No contemporary thinker has done more than Thomas Szasz to expose the myths and misconceptions surrounding insanity and the practice of psychiatry. Now, in Cruel Compassion, he gives us a sobering look at some of our most cherished notions about our humane treatment of society's unwanted, and perhaps more importantly, about ourselves as a compassionate and democratic people.

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290

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815605102

ISBN 13

9780815605102

Insanity

The Idea and Its Consequences

By: Thomas Szasz

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Insanity

The Idea and Its Consequences

By: Thomas Szasz

Is insanity a myth? Does it exist merely to keep psychiatrists in business? In Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences, Dr. Szasz challenges the way both science and society define insanity; in the process, he helps us better understand this often misunderstood condition. Dr. Szasz presents a carefully crafted account of the insanity concept and shows how it relates to and differs from three closely allied ideas—bodily illness, social deviance, and the sick role.

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436

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815604602

ISBN 13

9780815604600

Faith in Freedom

Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices

By: Thomas Szasz

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Faith in Freedom

Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices

By: Thomas Szasz

The libertarian philosophy of freedom is characterized by two fundamental beliefs: the right to be left alone and the duty to leave others alone. Psychiatric practice routinely violates both of these beliefs. It is based on the notion that self-ownership—exemplified by suicide—is a not an inherent right, but a privilege subject to the review of psychiatrists as representatives of society. In Faith in Freedom, Thomas Szasz raises fundamental questions about psychiatric practices that inhibit an individual's right to freedom. His questions are fundamental. Is suicide an exercise of rightful self-ownership or a manifestation of mental disorder? Does involuntary confinement under psychiatric auspices constitute unjust imprisonment, or is it therapeutically justified hospitalization? Should forced psychiatric drugging be interpreted as assault and battery on the person or is it medical treatment? The ethical standards of psychiatric practice mandate that psychiatrists employ coercion. Forgoing such "intervention" is considered a dereliction of the psychiatrists' "duty to protect." How should friends of freedom—especially libertarians—deal with the conflict between elementary libertarian principles and prevailing psychiatric practices? In Faith in Freedom, Thomas Szasz addresses this question more directly and more profoundly than in any of his previous works.

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393

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1351520741

ISBN 13

9781351520744

Freedom and Criminal Responsibility in American Legal Thought

By: Thomas Andrew Green

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Freedom and Criminal Responsibility in American Legal Thought

By: Thomas Andrew Green

This book deals with the most fundamental problem in criminal law, the way in which free will and determinism relate to criminal responsibility.

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519

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521854601

ISBN 13

9780521854603

Children of Psychiatrists and Other Psychotherapists

By: Thomas Maeder

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Children of Psychiatrists and Other Psychotherapists

By: Thomas Maeder

Shows that the belief is not erroneous: the very group of people who ought to be best prepared for raising sane, mature, "normal" children is reputed to fail on a spectacular scale. Maeder is the son of a psychiatrist-psychoanalyst and a psychiatric social worker. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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314

Publisher

HarperCollins Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

0060160640

ISBN 13

9780060160647

Book's by Thomas S. Szasz

The Manufacture of Madness

The Manufacture of Madness

Pain and Pleasure

Pain and Pleasure

Law, Liberty and Psychiatry

Law, Liberty and Psychiatry

Psychiatric Justice

Psychiatric Justice

Coercion as Cure

Coercion as Cure

Ideology and Insanity

Ideology and Insanity

Feeling Good and Doing Better

Feeling Good and Doing Better

Antipsychiatry

Antipsychiatry

Psychiatric Slavery

Psychiatric Slavery

Words to the Wise

Words to the Wise

Cruel Compassion

Cruel Compassion

Insanity

Insanity

Faith in Freedom

Faith in Freedom

Freedom and Criminal Responsibility in American Legal Thought

Freedom and Criminal Responsibility in American Legal Thought

Children of Psychiatrists and Other Psychotherapists

Children of Psychiatrists and Other Psychotherapists

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