All Posts Tagged With: "medicalization"
The Shame of Medicine: Is Suicide Legal?
What do we mean when we say an act is legal? We mean that we are free to think and speak about it, and plan and perform it, without penalty by agents of the State. Legal acts—for example, cooking and walking—are matters of indifference to the law. Suicide is not. Accordingly, suicide is illegal or [...]
22Jun2011 | Thomas Szasz | 10 comments | ContinuedAsk Not For Whom the Drug Tolls
“Fifty years ago, it made sense to assert that mental illnesses are not diseases, but it makes no sense to say so today. Debate about what counts as mental illness has been replaced by legislation about the medicalization and demedicalization of behavior. Old diseases such as homosexuality and hysteria disappear. New diseases such as gambling [...]
22Dec2010 | Wendy McElroy | 13 comments | ContinuedThe Medicalization of Suicide
Everyone now knows that suicide is a medical problem. Not long ago everyone knew that it was a religious and criminal problem. Bereft of the power of critical thinking and lacking historical knowledge, the human mind is a sponge for absorbing and magnifying error. The great American humorist Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818–1885) said [...]
22Sep2010 | Thomas Szasz | 3 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – October 2008
Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism by Jörg Guido Hülsmann Ludwig von Mises Institute • 2007 • 1143 pages • $50.00 Reviewed by Bettina Bien Greaves Biographer Guido Hülsmann has written a magnificent book, describing in detail not only the life of Ludwig von Mises, but also his writings, his intellectual development, and his importance. [...]
1Oct2008 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Medicalization of Everyday Life
In my October column I discussed the concept of medicalization and its role in modern societies. In this column I propose to answer the question: How are we to understand the contemporary confusion about what counts as a disease? Medical classification—the linguistic-conceptual ordering of phenomena we call “diseases” and of the interventions we call “treatments”—is [...]
1Dec2007 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedMedicalizing Quackery
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines “medicalize” as “to view or treat as a medical concern, problem, or disorder” and offers this phrase as illustration: “those who seek to dispose of social problems by medicalizing them.” Accordingly, we speak of the medicalization of homosexuality and hostility, but do not speak of the medicalization of malaria or [...]
1Oct2007 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedGovernment Needs to Lose Weight
How ironic that just as an already bloated government is taking on major new powers, it is exhorting us to lose weight. That’s exactly what former Surgeon General David Satcher did before leaving office. In his “Call To Action To Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity,” Dr. Satcher wrote that “Our ultimate goal is to [...]
1Jun2002 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | Continued-
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