Now available in a Harper Colophon edition, this classic book has revolutionized thinking throughout the Western world about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. Book jacket.

Is insanity a myth? Does it exist merely to keep psychiatrists in business? In Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences, Dr. Szasz challenges the way both science and society define insanity; in the process, he helps us better understand this often misunderstood condition. Dr. Szasz presents a carefully crafted account of the insanity concept and shows how it relates to and differs from three closely allied ideas—bodily illness, social deviance, and the sick role.

Szasz argues that the word schizophrenia does not stand for a genuine disease, that psychiatry has invented the concept as a sacred symbol to justify the practice of locking up people against their will and treating them with a variety of unwanted, unsolicited, and damaging interventions.

This intriguing book undercuts everything you thought you knew about psychotherapy.

The essays assembled in this volume reflect my long-standing interest in moral philosophy and my conviction that the idea of a medical ethics as something ...

Obsessed with the twin beliefs that misbehavior is a medical disorder and that the duty of the state is to protect adults from themselves, we have replaced criminal-punitive sentences with civil-therapeutic 'programs.' The result is the relentless loss of individual liberty, erosion of personal responsibility, and destruction of the security of persons and property - symptoms of the transformation of a Constitutional Republic into a Therapeutic State, unconstrained by the rule of law.

The invention of psychopathology -- Malingering -- Doctoring -- Inculpating -- Sheltering -- Cheating -- Lying -- The burden of responsibility.

The religious justification for male circumcision proffered by Jewish and Islamic parents is frequently overlooked in current secular (medical/hygienic) discussions that (1) challenge the moral justification of this ancient practice, and (2) question the decisions of today's parents who are committed, on the basis of their religious beliefs, to continue this practice. This paper reviews critically these conflicting values and arguments and calls for compromise in the face of potential state intervention to coerce parents to abandon this practice. Keywords: disease (...) prevention, medicalization, mutilation, religious values, routine neonatal circumcision, therapeutic state CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In physics, we use the same laws to explain why airplanes fly, and why they crash. In psychiatry, we use one set of laws to explain sane behaviour, which we attribute to reasons (choices), and another set of laws to explain insane behaviour, which we attribute to causes (diseases). God, man's idea of moral perfection, judges human deeds without distinguishing between sane persons responsible for their behaviour and insane persons deserving to be excused for their evil deeds. It is hubris (...) to pretend that the insanity defence is compassionate, just, or scientific. Mental illness is to psychiatry as phlogiston was to chemistry. Establishing chemistry as a science of the nature of matter required the recognition of the non-existence of phlogiston. Establishing psychiatry as a science of the nature of human behaviour requires the recognition of the non-existence of mental illness. (shrink)

Classically controversial Szasz here challenges "modern" science's attempts to define the human mind as merely a collection of brain functions.

In the conclusion to this multi-part article I first review the discussions carried out around the six essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis – the position taken by Allen Frances on each question, the commentaries on the respective question along with Frances’ responses to the commentaries, and my own view of the multiple discussions. In this review I emphasize that the core question is the first – what is the nature of psychiatric illness – and that in some manner all further (...) questions follow from the first. Following this review I attempt to move the discussion forward, addressing the first question from the perspectives of natural kind analysis and complexity analysis. This reflection leads toward a view of psychiatric disorders – and future nosologies – as far more complex and uncertain than we have imagined. (shrink)

Antipsychiatry : alternative psychiatry -- The doctor of irresponsibility -- The trickster and the tricked -- Antipsychiatry and anti-art -- Antipsychiatry abroad.

This is a brief comment on Christopher Megone's essay appearing in this issue. Cells, tissues, organs, and human beings qua biological organisms have natural functions, but human beings qua agents do not. Persons-in-society, unlike organs-in-bodies, are the products of culture, not simply of nature. Bodily disease is defined as a deviation from an objectively identifiable biological norm. The natural function of the kidney is to secrete urine; uremia is a literal disease. The social function of adults in American society includes (...) mingling with others in places away from home; "agoraphobia" may thus be called a metaphorical disease. In short, typhoid fever is a literal illness or disease; spring fever is a metaphorical illness or nondisease. Megone, however, rejects the claim that literal diseases "are physical disorders." Would he regard spring fever as a "real disease"? If not, why not? (shrink)

The practice of psychiatry rests on two pillars: mental illness and involuntary mental hospitalization. Each of these elements justifies and reinforces the other. Traditionally, psychiatric coercion was unidirectional, consisting of the forcible incarceration of the individual in an insane asylum. Today, it is bidirectional, the forcible eviction of the individual from the mental hospital supplementing his or her prior forcible incarceration in it. So intimate are the connections between psychiatry and coercion that noncoercive psychiatry, like noncoercive slavery, is an oxymoron.

The author examines the existential, historical, and political roots of psychiatric power, locating them, respectively, in the universality of guilt feelings and the desire to escape them, in psychiatry (replacing religion) as an institution offering surcease from such (and similar disturbing) feelings, and in the alliance, in modern societies, between psychiatry and the state. Clinical psychiatry and psychoanalysis, each in its own distinctive way, have served to legitimize the uses of psychiatric power. Liberty from coercive psychiatry requires destroying the legitimacy, (...) and hence power, of coercive psychiatric principles and practices. (shrink)

I thank Professor Fulford for giving me an opportunity to comment on Bracken and Thomas’s essay. Unfortunately, this requires accepting the authors’ focus on discourses rather than deeds, on what psychiatrists say and how they say it rather than on what psychiatrists do and how they justify it. This I cannot do in good conscience. Nevertheless, out of respect to Professor Fulford and the journal Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, as well as a sense of professional obligation, I offer herewith my (...) brief comments. Bracken and Thomas are not the first persons to compare my work with Foucault’s, nor the first to comment on my writing style. In 2001, a pseudonymous blogger posted this comment (still .. (shrink)

The Council for Secular Humanism identifies Secular Humanism as a "way of thinking and living" committed to rejecting authoritarian beliefs and embracing "individual freedom and responsibility ... and cooperation." The paradigmatic practices of psychiatry are civil commitment and insanity defense, that is, depriving innocent persons of liberty and excusing guilty persons of their crimes: the consequences of both are confinement in institutions ostensibly devoted to the treatment of mental diseases. Black's Law Dictionary states: "Every confinement of the person is an (...) 'imprisonment,' whether it be in a common prison, or in private house, or in the stocks, or even by forcibly detaining one in the public streets." Accordingly, I maintain that Secular Humanism is incompatible with the principles and practices of psychiatry. (shrink)

The Council for Secular Humanism identifies Secular Humanism as a "way of thinking and living" committed to rejecting authoritarian beliefs and embracing "individual freedom and responsibility... and cooperation." The paradigmatic practices of psychiatry are civil commitment and insanity defense, that is, depriving innocent persons of liberty and excusing guilty persons of their crimes: the consequences of both are confinement in institutions ostensibly devoted to the treatment of mental diseases. Black's Law Dictionary states: "Every confinement of the person is an 'imprisonment,' (...) whether it be in a common prison, or in private house, or in the stocks, or even by forcibly detaining one in the public streets." Accordingly, I maintain that Secular Humanism is incompatible with the principles and practices of psychiatry. (shrink)

"The complete list of the works of Thomas S. Szasz": pages 237-253.

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article will take up the first two questions. With the first question, invited commentators express a range of opinion regarding the nature of psychiatric disorders, loosely divided into a realist position that the diagnostic categories represent real diseases that we can accurately name and know with our perceptual abilities, a middle, nominalist position that psychiatric disorders do exist in the real world but that our diagnostic categories are constructs that may or may not accurately represent the disorders out there, and finally a purely constructivist position that the diagnostic categories are simply constructs with no evidence of psychiatric disorders in the real world. The second question again offers a range of opinion as to how we should define a mental or psychiatric disorder, including the possibility that we should not try to formulate a definition. The general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM – whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part 1 of this article took up the first two questions. Part 2 took up the second two questions. Part 3 now deals with Questions 5 & 6. Question 5 confronts the issue of utility, whether the manual design of DSM-III and IV favors clinicians or researchers, and what that means for DSM-5. Our final question, Question 6, takes up a concluding issue, whether the acknowledged problems with the earlier DSMs warrants a significant overhaul of DSM-5 and future manuals. As in Parts 1 & 2 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article took up the first two questions. Part II will take up the second two questions. Question 3 deals with the question as to whether DSM-V should assume a conservative or assertive posture in making changes from DSM-IV. That question in turn breaks down into discussion of diagnoses that depend on, and aim toward, empirical, scientific validation, and diagnoses that are more value-laden and less amenable to scientific validation. Question 4 takes up the role of pragmatic consideration in a psychiatric nosology, whether the purely empirical considerations need to be tempered by considerations of practical consequence. As in Part 1 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)