Bøger af Thomas Szasz

Szasz argues that the word schizophrenia does not stand for a genuine disease. He believes psychiatry has invented the concept as a sacred symbol to justify the practice of locking up people against their will.

A compendium of thoughts, observations and aphorisms that address our understanding of a broad range of subjects, from birth to death. Thomas Szasz tackles a problem intrinsic to the human condition: the problem of people knowing much that "ain't so".

More than fifty years ago, Thomas Szasz showed that the concept of mental illness - a disease of the mind - is an oxymoron, a metaphor, a myth. In this book, he argues that his writings belong to neither psychiatry nor antipsychiatry. They stem from conceptual analysis, social-political criticism, and common sense.

Challenges conventional beliefs about psychiatry. The author asserts that, in fact, psychiatrists are not concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of bona fide illnesses. Psychiatric tradition, social expectation, and the law make it clear that coercion is the profession's determining characteristic.

Portrays the integral role of deception in the history and practice of psychiatry. This work 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.

This volume contains the earliest essays, going back more than thirty years, in which the author staked out his position on 'the nature, scope, methods, and values of psychiatry.'

In this brilliantly original and highly accessible work, Thomas Szasz demonstrates the futility of analyzing the mind as a collection of brain functions.

Every age, labels others to a particular fate, such as the witch consigned to the fire. The priest has now been replaced by the psychiatrist and this text examines the role of medicine as a more insidious tyrant than religion, as it claims to be beneficial to both the patient and the commonwealth.

This work highlights how the introduction of third-party payers into medicine has altered the relationship between doctor and patient. It explains why patients are increasingly dissatisfied with the medical care they receive, and doctors with the way they have to practice medicine.