All Posts Tagged With: "mental illness"
The Burden of Responsibility
Life is an unending series of choices and, therefore, “problems in living.” Ordinary choices—what to have for breakfast—we ignore as trivial. Extraordinary choices—whether to kill ourselves (or worse)—we dismiss as the symptoms of mental illness. The profession of psychiatry rests on, and caters to, the ubiquitous human desire to avoid, evade, and deny the very [...]
1Dec2008 | Thomas Szasz | 1 comment | ContinuedMendacity by Metaphor
Once upon a time, law-abiding citizens acknowledged that they wanted lawbreakers punished. They did not say the offenders “needed” punishment. When they used the term “need” metaphorically—as when an outlaw in a bar told his buddies that one of their adversaries “needed” killing—they knew what they were talking about. They did not lie to themselves, [...]
1Oct2008 | Thomas Szasz | 0 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. Hülsmann studied all Mises’s [...]
Psychiatry Versus Liberty
For millennia, slavery—involuntary servitude—was a universally accepted social institution. Today, psychiatric slavery—involuntary “treatment for mental illness”—is such an institution. Psychiatric incarceration and forced psychiatric treatment are integral parts of modern medical practice and social life.
The libertarian philosophy of freedom is based on the premise that self-ownership is a basic right and that initiating violence against [...]
Treatments Without Diseases
In the psychiatrically correct view, mental illnesses are “just like bodily illnesses”; in fact, they are authoritatively declared to be “brain diseases.” The truth is that they are not. In medicine, there are diseases and, sometimes, treatments for them. In psychiatry, there are no diseases; nevertheless there are always treatments; that is, procedures declared to [...]
1Mar2008 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedMental 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 | 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 | ContinuedBook Reviews – May 2003
The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power
by Max Boot
Basic Books • 2002 • 448 pages • $30.00 hardcover; $16.00 paperback
Reviewed by Ivan Eland
Max Boot provides a thorough and relatively candid history of the U.S. government’s involvement in small wars. The section of the book on Vietnam is particularly honest [...]
Does Insanity Cause Crime?
Thomas Szasz, M.D., is professor of psychiatry emeritus at SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is the author of The Myth of Mental Illness.
“The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman
is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”
—Gilbert K. Chesterton
For 300 years we have sidestepped [...]
Remembering Krafft-Ebing
Thomas Szasz, M.D., is professor of psychiatry emeritus at SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is the author of The Myth of Mental Illness.
In my previous column (November 1999), I showed that mental illness is not a disease because it does not meet the scientific criterion of disease. In this column I [...]
Capital Letters
Live by the Stats, Die by the Stats
To the Editor:
Regarding Mark Skousen’s column, “Chicago Gun Show,” in the October 1999 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty the statistical arguments advanced by the Chicago school allegedly demonstrating gun ownership reduces violent crime are methodologically flawed. Though I am a proud gun owner and lifetime NRA [...]
-
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
