by Thomas Szasz
Obsessed with the twin beliefs that misbehavior is a medical disorder (which it's not) and that the duty of the state is to protect adults from themselves (which it isn't and shouldn't be), we have replaced criminal-punitive sentences with civil-therapeutic 'programs.' The result is the relentless loss of individual liberty, erosion of personal responsibility, and destruction of the security of persons and property - symptoms of the transformation of a Constitutional Republic into a Therapeutic State, unconstrained by the rule of law. Szasz shows convincingly that not until we separate therapy from coercion - much as the founders separated theology from coercion - shall we be able to get a handle on our seemingly intractable psychiatric and social problems. No contemporary thinker has done more than Thomas Szasz to expose the myths and misconceptions surrounding insanity and the practice of psychiatry. Now, in Cruel Compassion, he gives us a sobering look at some of our most cherished notions about our humane treatment of society's unwanted, and perhaps more importantly, about ourselves as a compassionate and democratic people. Szasz concentrates upon the poor and unwanted who are institutionalized against their will, but his comments about the field of psychiatry in this limited attack actually apply to the wider field of psychiatry as a whole. THOMAS SZASZ, M.D., is considered a brilliant revolutionary thinker by some - a dangerous renegade by others. In either case, the author of The Manufacture of Madness, Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry, and Sex by Prescription is one of the most important writers in present-day psychiatry.
|
