Archive for Thomas Szasz
Thomas Szasz is professor of psychiatry emeritus at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. His latest book is Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared.
Mental Illness: Sickness or Status?
Popular belief and scientific dogma notwithstanding, the term “mental illness” refers to unwanted behavior, not medical malady. Specifically, the term refers to the role of “mental patient,” a social status imbued with far-reaching legal and political implications. The law assumes that persons called “mental patients” are more likely to be dangerous to themselves and/or others [...]
1Aug2006 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedMental Illness as Brain Disease: A Brief History Lesson
A 1999 White House Conference on Mental Health concluded: “Research in the last decade proves that mental illnesses are diagnosable disorders of the brain.” President William Clinton was more specific: “Mental illness can be accurately diagnosed, successfully treated, just as physical illness.” Persons who reject the view that mental illnesses are physical diseases are dismissed [...]
1May2006 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Mad-Genius Controversy
Our ideas about genius, madness, and the existence of a close relationship between them are modern inventions. For millennia people explained the world about themespecially creative/
good and destructive/bad behaviorsin spiritual or god terms.
The Therapeutic State ~ Taxing for Therapy
The Marxian credo, “From each according to his
abilities, to each according to his needs,” is the
moral foundation of the progressive tax policies
of modern capitalist societies. The psychiatric credo,
“From each producer according to his income, to each
psychiatric parasite according to his cunning,” amplifies
that creed and garbs it in the mantle of therapy.
Primum Nocere
Although the phrase “First, Do No Harm” is not in the Hippocratic Oath, in the opinion of many scholars Hippocrates did originate it. In his book, Epidemics, he wrote: “As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least to do no harm.” This principle, usually expressed in its Latin translation, Primum [...]
1Dec2004 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedHouse of Aces
Almost 50 years have passed since I first proposed that the concept of mental illness and the profession of psychiatry rest on fictitious foundations. “Mental illnesses” (henceforth without scare quotes) are behaviors, not diseases. Psychiatry is religion, rhetoric, and repression, not medicine. The basis for understanding mental illness lies in semiotics (the study of signs [...]
1Jul2004 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedOn Autogenic Diseases
Our bodies are physico-chemical machines. When the function of the machine deviates from what is generally considered normal and if we regard the deviation as harmful and unwanted, we call the event or process a “disease.” Like all physical-chemical events, diseases have causes, which physicians call “etiology.” The familiar causes of disease are pathogenic microbes, [...]
1May2004 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedCivil Liberties and Civil Commitment
Defenders of civil liberties readily recognize when some state interventions—such as censorship of the press or forced religious observances—violate civil liberties. However, many of the same defenders of civil liberties are unable or refuse to recognize when certain other state interventions—such as civil commitment—violate civil liberties.
1Dec2003 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedTaking Drug Laws Seriously, II
Libertarians univocally assert that the prohibition against initiating violence is a cardinal principle of libertarianism. The peasant in Colombia who grows coca is not initiating violence. The politician in the District of Columbia who enacts laws authorizing the use of military aircraft to bomb and destroy the peasant’s crop does.
1Oct2003 | Thomas Szasz | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Therapeutic State: Unequal Justice for All
Drug prohibition is stupid social policy for many reasons, most obviously because forbidden fruit tastes sweeter; that is, because one of the easiest ways for a young person to assert his autonomy is by defying authority, especially arbitrary and hypocritical authority.
1Jul2003 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Therapeutic State: The Myth of Health Insurance
Forty million Americans are said to have no health insurance. Those who do have health insurance are frustrated by having to pay ever-increasing premiums for steadily diminishing medical services. Conventional wisdom tells us that we are facing a “health insurance crisis.”
It is important to recognize that what we call “health insurance” has little to do [...]
-
Latest Toon
-
Book Reviews
-
The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let it Happen
By Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous
