Dr. Thomas Stephen Szasz (born April 15, 1920 in Hungary) is Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. Szasz is regarded as one of the most important critics of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry. April 15 is the 105th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (106th in leap years). ... 1920 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) Events January January 7 - Forces of Russian White admiral Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. ... The Republic of Hungary (Magyar Köztársaság) or Hungary (Magyarország) is a landlocked country in Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. ... Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). ... The State University of New York (acronym SUNY; usually pronounced SOO-nee) is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. ... Clinton Square in Downtown Syracuse Syracuse is a city located in Onondaga County, New York, USA. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 147,306, and its metropolitan area had a population of 732,117. ...

He is a prolific author and speaker, probably most 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. A provocative and pithy writer, Szasz's statements on the human condition are widely quoted. The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a controversial book by Thomas Szasz. ...

His views 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. Liberalism is a political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defense of individual liberty as the purpose of government. ... This article deals with the libertarianism as defined in America and several other nations. ... See drugs, medication, and pharmacology for substances that are used to treat patients. ...

Szasz's main arguments

Photography by Jeffrey A. Schaler.

Szasz's main arguments can be summarised as follows:

• The myth of mental illness: Mental illness is a metaphor. Illness is defined as an objectively demonstrable biological pathology that affects living creatures. Since mental illness describes undesirable behaviors, thoughts or feelings, there is no objective pathology to observe. The classification of certain behaviors as illnesses is a way of controlling undesirable people in society. By medicalising behavior we give the state and its psychiatric agents the power to involuntarily detain and drug individuals whose actions others find intolerable.

• 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.

Szasz is often said to be allied with the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He disavows the connection, though, since 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. The Scream, the famous painting commonly thought of as depicting the experience of mental illness. ... In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope where a comparison is made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. ... A psychoactive drug or psychotropic substance is a chemical that alters brain function, resulting in temporary changes in perception, mood, consciousness, or behaviour. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... Genocide has been defined as the deliberate killing of people based on their ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, or (sometimes) politics, as well as other deliberate actions leading to the physical elimination of any of the above categories. ... The word Jew (Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... The Rroma people (pronounced rahma, singular Rrom) along with the closely related Sinti people are commonly known as Gypsies. ... Homosexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by esthetic attraction, romantic love, or sexual desire exclusively for another of the same sex. ... Birth control is the practice of preventing or reducing the probability of pregnancy without abstaining from sexual intercourse; the term is also sometimes used to include abortion, the ending of an unwanted pregnancy, or abstinence. ... Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of intentionally ending ones own life. ... The insanity defense are possible defenses by excuse, via which a defendant may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as they were mentally ill or mentally incompetent at the time of their allegedly criminal actions. ... Beginning in the 1960s, a movement called anti-psychiatry claimed that psychiatric patients are not ill but are individuals that do not share the same consensus reality as most people in society. ... Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around the world. ...

External links

• The Thomas S. Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility (http://www.szasz.com/)
• The Szasz Blog (http://theszaszblog.blogspot.com/)
• The Case Against Psychiatric Coercion, by Thomas S. Szasz (http://www.iatrogenic.org/library/case.html)
• Mental Disorders are not Diseases, by Thomas S. Szasz (http://www.szasz.com/usatoday.html)
• Interview: Curing the Therapeutic State (http://reason.com/0007/fe.js.curing.shtml)
• Thomas Szasz Quotes (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_szasz.html)