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Psychiatry

The Science of Lies

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Psychiatry

By: Thomas Szasz
Narrated by: Tom Weiner
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About this listen

For more than half a century, Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to a radical critique of psychiatry. His latest work, Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, is a culmination of his life’s work: to portray the integral role of deception in the history and practice of psychiatry.

Szasz argues that the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness stands in the same relationship to the diagnosis and treatment of bodily illness that the forgery of a painting does to the original masterpiece. Art historians and the legal system seek to distinguish forgeries from originals. Those concerned with medicine, on the other hand - physicians, patients, politicians, health-insurance providers, and legal professionals - take the opposite stance when faced with the challenge of distinguishing everyday problems in living from bodily diseases, systematically authenticating non-diseases as diseases. The boundary between disease and non-disease - genuine and imitation, truth and falsehood - thus becomes arbitrary and uncertain.

There is neither glory nor profit in correctly demarcating what counts as medical illness and medical healing from what does not. Individuals and families wishing to protect themselves from medically and politically authenticated charlatanry are left to their own intellectual and moral resources to make critical decisions about human dilemmas miscategorized as “mental diseases” and about medicalized responses misidentified as “psychiatric treatments.”

Delivering his sophisticated analysis in lucid prose and with a sharp wit, Szasz continues to engage and challenge readers of all backgrounds.

Thomas Szasz is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York’s Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York.

©2008 Thomas Szasz (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Mental Health Psychology New York

Critic Reviews

"[Thomas Szasz] is the preeminent critic of psychiatry in the world." (Richard Vatz, Ph.D., Professor of Rhetoric and Communication, Towson University)

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Don’t bother

As a prospective psych student, I thought it would be a good idea to broaden my perspective and while Thomas does raise a very valid point in relation to liberties, psychiatric care and the stigma that can follow a mental diagnosis, the argument became diluted by his diatribe against Freud. We get it, you don’t like him - but to dismiss the young field of psychiatry and its contribution to patient care and medicine would be akin to dismissing apothecary from pharmacy.
The book is less a structured critique of medical validity and more a conservative smear campaign on the discipline. With over 35 books written, perhaps Thomas has a more persuasive essay written somewhere else but this book was lacklustre.

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Great book and well worth the read

Szasz's view is an interesting and well thought through combination of Libertarian and anti-psychiatric thinking. Most writers who question psychiatry do so from a liberal/progressive perspective. Szasz's Libertarianism brings him to some logical and consistent views that more liberal writers are silent on - particularly in regards to psychiatry's role in maintaining the social taboo on suicide via coercive psychiatric interventions.

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