All Posts Tagged With: "deinstitutionalization"
Idiots, Infants and the Insane: Mental Illness and Legal Incompetence
In principle, mental patents are considered competent, free to accept or refuse treatment. In practice, they are often treated as if they were incompetent, forced to submit to treatment in their own best interest. This conflation of mental illness and legal incompetence—and the concomitant transformation of the mental patient in the community into the (potential [...]
1Jul2005 | Thomas Szasz | 1 comment | 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 | Continued-
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