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Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the SUNY Health Sciences Center in Syracuse, is the premier critic of psychiatric coercions, excuses, and mendacity. He is one of the important social observers of our age and among the century's most persistent and principled defenders of liberty and personal dignity. "Dr. Szasz is a brilliant debater . . . his formidable writing talent
is extraordinarily entertaining." |
Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry
Syracuse University Press, 1990, paper
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Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted
John Wiley & Sons, 1994, hardcoverCruel 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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The Meaning of Mind: Language, Morality, and Neuroscience
Praeger, 1996, HardcoverIn The Meaning of Mind, Thomas Szasz argues that only as a verb does the word "mind" name something in the real world, namely, attending or heeding. Minding is the ability to pay attention and adapt to one's environment by using language to communicate with others and oneself. Viewing the "mind" as a potentially infinite variety of self-conversations is the key that unlocks many of the mysteries we associate with this concept. Modern neuroscience is a misdirected effort to explain "mind" in terms of brain functions. The claims and conclusions of the diverse academics and scientists who engage in this enterprise undermine the concepts of moral agency and personal responsibility. Szasz shows that the cognitive function of speech is to enable us to talk not only to others but to ourselves (in short, to be our own interlocutor) and that the view that mind is brain -- embraced by both the scientific community and the popular press -- is not an empirical finding but a rhetorical ruse concealing humanity's unceasing struggle to control persons by controlling their vocabulary. The discourse of brain-mind, unlike the discourse of man as moral agent, protects people from the dilemmas intrinsic to holding themselves responsible for their own actions and holding others responsible for theirs. Because we live in an age blessed by the fruits of materialist science, reductionist explanations of the relationship between brain and mind are more popular than ever, making this book an indispensable addition to the seemingly recondite debate about, simply, who we are.
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Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences
Wiley, 1986, paper
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Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market
Syracuse University Press, 1996, paper
A profound and subtle analysis of the moral issues raised by the prohibition of drugs. Whether you favor or oppose our present drug policy, reading this book will transform your understanding of the real issues involved. -- Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, Hoover Institution
Szasz's most important contribution is his unrelenting insistence that legislating individual moral (and here, chemical) purity is utterly inconsistent with the principle of personal liberal democracy. -- Legal Times
Readers will be surprised and enlightened after reading Thomas Szasz's passionate arguments for the legalization of drugs. Rather than dwelling on the familiar impracticality and unfairness of drugs laws, he demonstrates the deleterious effect of prescription laws, which place people under lifelong medical supervision.
By stressing the consequences of the central aim of the U.S. drug prohibitions--protecting the public from harming themselves by self-medication--he emphasizes that a free society cannot endure if the state treats adults as truant children and if its citizens reject the values of self-discipline and personal responsibility.
Szasz explores the racial aspects of drug prohibition -- drug enforcers are far more likely to accost blacks than whites -- and suggests a connection between drug prohibition and the personal dread of the availability of an easy and pleasurable way to commit suicide.
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The Theology of Medicine: The Political-Philosophical Foundations of Medical Ethics
Syracuse University Press, 1988, paper
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The Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression
Syracuse University Press, 1988, hardcover
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Information about the Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties
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