Thomas Szasz

From Freepedia

Dr. Thomas Stephen Szasz (born April 15, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary) is Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. Szasz is a critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry.

He is well known for his books The Myth of Mental Illness and The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement which set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.

His views on involuntary treatment follow from classical liberal roots which are based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self ownership and the right to be free from violence from others. Szasz is a principled libertarian who believes that the practice of medicine, use and sale of drugs, and sexual relations, should be private, contractual, and outside of state jurisdiction.

Together with the Church of Scientology, Szasz co-founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) in 1969 to fight what it sees as human rights crimes committed by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals.

Szasz's main arguments

Szasz's main arguments can be summarised as follows:

• The myth of mental illness: Schizophrenia and other mental disorders are simply semantic artifacts and do not really exist. While people behave and think in ways that are very disturbing, this does not mean they have a disease. To Szasz, people with mental illness have a "fake disease," which is simply "the sacred symbol of psychiatry." To be a true disease, "it must somehow be capable of being approached, measured, or tested in scientific fashion."

• Separation of psychiatry and the state: If we accept that 'mental illness' is a euphemism for behaviours that are disapproved of, then the state has no right to force psychiatric 'treatment' on these individuals. Similarly, the state should not be able to interfere in mental health practices between consenting adults (for example, by legally controlling the supply of psychotropic drugs or psychiatric medication). The medicalization of government produces a "therapeutic state," which in an extreme case led to the Nazi genocide against Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other "undesirables."

• Presumption of competence: Just as legal systems work on the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty, individuals accused of crimes should not be presumed incompetent simply because a doctor or psychiatrist labels them as such. Mental incompetence should be assessed like any other form of incompetence, i.e., by purely legal and judicial means with the right of representation and appeal by the accused.

• Death Control: In an analogy to birth control, Szasz argues that individuals should be able to choose when to die without interference from medicine or the state, just as they are able to choose when to conceive without outside interference. He considers suicide to be among the most fundamental rights, but he opposes state-sanctioned euthanasia.

• Abolition of the insanity defense: Szasz believes that testimony about the mental competence of a defendant should not be admissible in trials.

• Abolition of involuntary mental hospitalization: No one should be deprived of liberty unless he is found guilty of a criminal offense. Depriving a person of liberty for what is said to be his own good is immoral. Just as a person suffering from terminal cancer may refuse treatment, so should a person be able to refuse psychiatric treatment.
• Legalization of illegal drugs: Although Szasz opposes pychotropic medications, he favors the legalization of illegal drugs. "Because we have a free market in food, we can buy all the bacon, eggs, and ice cream we want and can afford. If we had a free market in drugs, we could similarly buy all the barbiturates, chloral hydrate, and morphine we want and could afford."

Szasz is associated with the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He has attempted to distance himself from the connection, though, noting that he is not opposed to the practice of psychiatry if it is non-coercive. He maintains that psychiatry should be a contractual service between consenting adults with no state involvement, and he favors the abolition of mental hospitals and the repudiation of force. According to Szasz, involuntary mental hospitalization is a crime against humanity which, if unopposed, will expand into "pharmacratic" dictatorship.

Criticism

Mainstream pyschiatrists argue that Szasz's theories deserve refutation only because they are often cited by Scientologists and other anti-psychiatrists. Szasz himself conducts a traditional psychoanalytic practice for individuals with problems of living; there is nothing in his writings to suggest that he has any experience with or ever treats patients with serious mental illness. Moreover, serious mental illness is now regularly "approached, measured, or tested in scientific fashion" and the evidence that schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses are brain diseases is overwhelming.

External links

• The Thomas S. Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility
• The Szasz Blog
• the Thomas Szasz Discussion Group
• The Case Against Psychiatric Coercion, by Thomas S. Szasz
• Mental Disorders are not Diseases, by Thomas S. Szasz
• Interview: Curing the Therapeutic State
• Thomas Szasz Quotes
• Psychiatric News article on Thomas Szasz