Bøger af Thomas Szasz

Presents a collection of topical essays. Pivoting the analysis on news-making events, this book exposes the fallacies of our penchant for interpreting the behaviour of 'sane' persons as goal-directed and therefore sensible, and the behaviour of 'insane' persons as caused by a 'mental illness' and therefore senseless.

A defence of every individual's right to choose a voluntary death. The book contributes to the debates surrounding a significant ethical question facing our society: the right to suicide; physician-assisted suicide; psychiatric intervention for suicidal patients; and euthanasia.

Social anthropology, defined operationally in terms of what social anthropologists have done in the last fifty years, is the study and comparison of tribal societies and of small fields of social life with emphasis on the role of custom

The human mind abhors the absence of explanation, but full understanding is never possible

Understanding the history of psychiatry requires an accurate view of its function and purpose

Social anthropology, defined operationally in terms of what social anthropologists have done in the last fifty years, is the study and comparison of tribal societies and of small fields of social life with emphasis on the role of custom

A study of the history and present state of psychiatry. It compares the oppression of the slave by the master with that of the mental patient by the psychiatrist - one defining domination as liberation from the shackles of ignorance, the other as liberation from the shackles of mental illness.

Szasz attacks the sacred cows of contemporary American society. In his acerbic and aphoristic style he rails against the hypocrisy and fraudulence of the futile and murderous war against drugs, the sordid and often self-seeking practices of psychotherapy and the atrocities of psychiatry.

Looks at how Virginia Woolf, as well as her husband Leonard, used the concept of madness and the profession of psychiatry to manage and manipulate their own and each other's lives. The author interprets Virginia Woolf's life and work as expressions of her character, and her character as the "product" of her free will.

The idea of ""insanity"" pervades every aspect of our daily lives. Here, Szasz contends that the term actually functions as a euphemism for problems in living, as an excuse for crime and misbehaviour, as a stigma for invalidating adversaries - and, generally, as a metaphor and legal fiction.

In this polemical response to the controversy about drug use and drug criminalization, Thomas Szasz suggests that governments have overstepped their bounds in labelling and prohibiting certain drugs as ""dangerous"" substances and incarcerating ""addicts"" in order to cure them.

Millions of Americans, diagnosed mentally ill, are drugged and confined by doctors for non-criminal conduct, go unpunished for crimes they commit, and are supported by the state - not because they are sick but because they are unproductive and unwanted. This study re-examines such interventions

This work shows how the present drug war started at the beginning of this century, when the US government first assumed the task of protecting people from patent medicines. It demonstrates, however, the deleterious effects of prescription laws, which place people under lifelong medical supervision.

Dr. Thomas Szasz on the shortcomings of commitment procedures, and the inadequacies of protections afforded patients in psychiatric institutions. He alerts us to the existing and potential abuses of human rights in mental health programs and procedures.

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

A collection of essays that chronicles the author's long campaign against the orthodoxies of psychiatry. From ""Medicine to Magic"" to ""Medicine as Social Control,"" this book delves into the history of medicalization, including ""The Discovery of Drug Addiction,"" ""Persecutions for Witchcraft and Drugcraft,"" and ""Food Abuse and Foodaholism.

Here, Thomas Szasz demonstrates the futility of analysing the mind as a collection of brain functions. He warns that we misconstrue the dialogue within as a problem of consciousness and neuroscience and do so at our peril.

Dealing with the relationship between psychiatry and the law, this book looks at the federal and state procedures which render impotent the constitutional right to a speedy and public trial. Trial transcripts are used to support the author's arguments.

A collection of essays by Szasz, showing the philosophical foundations he believes are necessary for a society which truly supports freedom and autonomy of the individual.

The author of this book argues that human sexuality - however it may be expressed - reveals who we are and who we want to be. He claims that there are no sexual disorders that need to be cured by sex therapies - there is only the never-ending task of having to develop and shape our lives.

This is a defence of every individual's right to choose a voluntary death. By maintaining statutes that determine that voluntary death is not legal, Thomas Szasz believes that our society is forfeiting one of its basic freedoms and causing the medical establishment to treat individuals inhumanely.

Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and satirist who wrote on the abuse of language by psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and journalists. This is an introduction to Kraus's life and work and his place in cultural history, followed by translations of his selected works on psychiatry.

First in-depth examination and critique of contemporary anti-suicide policies that are based on the notion that voluntary death is a mental health problem, and systematically lays out the dehumanizing consequences of psychiatrizing suicide prevention.

An exposition of the nature, possibilities and limitations of psychoanalytic treatment, defending the essence of psychoanalysis against moralistic and conformist misuse.

In this short work, Dr. Szasz takes aim at conventional psychiatry, and at the attendent system of courts, hospitals, and psychiatrists who confine patients against their will. The focal point is a Supreme Court case involving a man forcibly committed to a Florida asylum for 14 years.

.In Our Right to Drugs, Thomas Szasz shows that our present drug war started at the beginning of this century, when the American government first assumed the task of protecting people from patent medicines.

In this work Dr Szasz dispels popular and scientific confusion about what pain and pleasure actually are. Demonstrating the doubtful value of such distinctions as 'real' and 'imagined' pain, or 'physical' and 'intellectual' pleasure, he analyses the basic concepts - psychological, philosophical, and sociological - involved in bodily feelings.

Thomas Szasz argues that the modern penchant for transforming human problems into ""diseases"" and judicial sanctions into ""treatments"", replacing the rule of law with the rule of medical discretion, leads to a type of government he calls ""pharmacracy"", eroding personal freedom and dignity.