Psychiatric Slavery

The leading opponent of involuntary mental hospitalization names and documents his charges in a full attack on what he considers the unconstitutional, immoral, and illegal confinement of people to mental institutions without treatment

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Szasz, Thomas Stephen

Psychology & Counseling

Free Pr

This intriguing book undercuts everything you thought you knew about psychotherapy. Until recent years, ''bad'' and ''immoral'' were the terms used to describe people who are now referred to as ''sick'' and ''in need of treatment.'' Moral and religious perspective has been replaced by medical and therapeutic rhetoric. It is little wonder why the world is plagued by legions of rapists, drug users, murderers, thieves, and child abusers, all of whom are now referred to as having one form or another of ''addiction'' and are thus either ''sick'' or suffering from ''mental illness.'' Accordingly, modern psychotherapists claim that these are in need of specialized ''therapy'' or ''treatment'' to help them ''cope with their disease.'' Moral relativism, bolstered by psychotherapy, has prevailed over the traditional ideas of self-control, individual responsibility, and moral culpability. Thomas Szasz moves to demythologize psychotherapy itself in a most provocative manner.

The myth of psychotherapy: Mental healing as religion, rhetoric, and repression

Anchor Books

Aphorisms about marriage, love, sex, ethics, freedom, punishment, religion, psychiatry, mental illness, and other topics illuminate contradictions characterizing contemporary attitudes and the consequences of literalizing metaphors. Bibliogs

Heresies

DOUBLEDAY

Attacks currently popular sex-therapy cures and clinics, maintaining that sexual anxieties are often fostered by widespread publicity, myths, and educational emphasis on problematical issues of sexual performance and satisfaction

Sex by Prescription

Self-Help

The noted psychiatrist challenges established scientific and social definitions of insanity, redefining the concept in relation to bodily illness, social deviance, and the sick role

Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences

Mental Health

John Wiley&Sons, Inc.

A classic work that has revolutionized thinking throughout the Western world about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. "Bold and often brilliant."--Science

The myth of mental illness: foundations of a theory of personal conduct,

Paladin

If, as the Old Testament tells us, the First or Original Sin was the knowledge of good and evil, then the knowledge of clear speech was the "Second Sin,"  At Babel, God punished man for this transgression with the Divine Confusion, and we have been misleading each other ever since.  Dr. Thomas Szasz believes that it is this confusion of language that has produced much of the inhumanity, intolerance, and outright stupidity which today affect everything from our politics to our sex lives.  This is Dr. Szasz's effort to dispel some of this confusion.  It is a collection of penetrating, fresh, and often humorous thoughts, ranging from sex and the family to drugs, schizophrenia, and psychiatry.  For example, Dr. Szasz points out that when a person acts as if he were speaking to God we say he is praying, but when he acts as if God were speaking to him we say he has "schizophrenia" - and we look to medical science to "cure" him of his "mental illness."  Other excerpts from the Second Sin:  Formerly, Americans charges with murder were considered innocent until proven guilty; now they are considered insane until proven sane.  Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind.  In the nineteenth century, it was a disease; in the twentieth, it is a cure.  Treating addiction to heroin with methadone is like treating addiction to Scotch with Bourbon.

Second Sin

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Routledge& Kegan Paul

Ceremonial Chemistry: The ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers

Ceremonial chemistry: The ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Routledge and K. Paul

Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry

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.

Coercion As Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry

Transaction Pub

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Szasz, Thomas Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Szasz, Thomas Stephen

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Szasz, Thomas Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Psychiatric Slavery

The myth of psychotherapy: Mental healing as religion, rhetoric, and repression

Heresies

Sex by Prescription

Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences

Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences

The myth of mental illness: foundations of a theory of personal conduct,

Second Sin

Ceremonial chemistry: The ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers

Coercion As Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry