Thomas S. Szasz: The Man and His Ideas - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 141286514X ISBN 13: 9781412865142

Publisher: Routledge, 2017

Synopsis

As it entered the 1960s, American institutional psychiatry was thriving, with a high percentage of medical students choosing the field. But after Thomas S. Szasz published his masterwork in 1961, The Myth of Mental Illness, the psychiatric world was thrown into chaos.

Szasz enlightened the world about what he called the “myth of mental illness.” His point was not that no one is mentally ill, or that people labeled as mentally ill do not exist. Instead he believed that diagnosing people as mentally ill was inconsistent with the rules governing pathology and the classification of disease. He asserted that the diagnosis of mental illness is a type of social control, not medical science.

The editors were uniquely close to Szasz, and here they gather, for the first time, a group of their peers―experts on psychiatry, psychology, rhetoric, and semiotics―to elucidate Szasz’s body of work. Thomas S. Szasz: The Man and His Ideas examines his work and legacy, including new material on the man himself and the seeds he planted. They discuss Szasz’s impact on their thinking about the distinction between physical and mental illness, addiction, the insanity plea, schizophrenia, and implications for individual freedom and responsibility. This important volume offers insight into and understanding of a man whose ideas were far beyond his time.

About this title

About the Author

Jeffrey A. Schaler is a psychologist in private practice, author, and a former full-time professor at American University's School of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. Henry Zvi Lothane is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, N.Y., and a psychoanalyst renowned for his books on Daniel Paul Schreber and papers on Sabina Spielrein. Richard E. Vatz is a professor of communication at Towson University in Maryland. He has published hundreds of academic pieces, as well as a cutting-edge book on rhetoric, and works as a political commentator for various media.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 141286514X
• ISBN 13: 9781412865142
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216
• Editor: Schaler Jeffrey A., Lothane Henry Zvi, Vatz Richard E.