Bøker av Thomas Szasz

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

.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.

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".

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.

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.