📖 Thomas S. Szasz - The Myth of Mental Illness
Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct
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Today’s book is:
The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct - by Thomas S. Szasz
“The landmark book that argued that psychiatry consistently expands its definition of mental illness to impose its authority over moral and cultural conflict.” — New York Times
The 50th anniversary edition of the most influential critique of psychiatry every written, with a new preface on the age of Prozac and Ritalin and the rise of designer drugs, plus two bonus essays.
Thomas Szasz's classic book revolutionized thinking about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. By diagnosing unwanted behavior as mental illness, psychiatrists, Szasz argues, absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions and instead blame their alleged illness. He also critiques Freudian psychology as a pseudoscience and warns against the dangerous overreach of psychiatry into all aspects of modern life.
You can buy the book here (Amazon link).
This is a welcome treat! Too bad he's so roundly ignored. Psychiatry has become a fraudulent pseudoscience, a drug racket, and a social control mechanism. 21st Century Phrenology, with potent neuro-toxins. Psychiatry has done, and continues to do, FAR MORE HARM, than good. The DSM is a catalog of billing codes. Everything in it was either invented or created, - nothing in it was discovered. So-called "mental illnesses" are exactly as "real" as presents from Santa Claus, but not more real. Labeling somebody as having a "mental illness", is the very basis of stigma.....
"By diagnosing unwanted behavior as mental illness, psychiatrists, Szasz argues, absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions and instead blame their alleged illness."
Yes, that's one aspect of it. Another, though, is that unwanted behavior, including expressing unwanted ideas, can be dismissed rather than taken seriously, and then be medicated away. This was done forcibly in the Soviet Union to people we at that time viewed as perfectly sane political dissidents and/or people with religious opinions that departed from the Party-approved norm.