Thomas Szasz Quotes - Page 5

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• There is no such thing as mental illness, hence also no such thing as psychotherapy.

  Thomas Szasz

  Mental Illness, Illness, Psychotherapy

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• The language of science—and especially of a science of man—is, necessarily, anti-individualistic, and hence a threat to human freedom and dignity.

  Thomas Szasz

  Men, Dignity, Language

  Thomas Stephen Szasz, Karl Kraus (1990). “Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry”, p.44, Syracuse University Press

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• After generations of living under medical tutelage, which provides us with protection (albeit illusory) against "dangerous drugs", we have failed to cultivate the self-reliance and self-discipline we must possess as competent adults surrounded by the fruits of our pharmacological-technological age.

  Thomas Szasz

  Self, Discipline, Drug

  Thomas Szasz (1996). “Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market”, p.24, Syracuse University Press

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• Is psychiatry a medical enterprise concerned with treating diseases, or a humanistic enterprise concerned with helping persons with their personal problems? Psychiatry could be one or the other, but it cannot--despite the pretensions and protestations of psichiatrists--be both.

  Thomas Szasz

  Disease, Helping, Medical

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences”, p.324, Syracuse University Press

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• Had the white settlers in North America called the natives 'Americans' instead of 'Indians', the early Americans could not have said that the 'only good Indian is a dead Indian' and could not have deprived them so easily of their lands and lands and lives. Robbing people of their proper names is often the first step in robbing them of their property, liberty, and life.

  Thomas Szasz

  Land, Names, White

  Thomas Szasz (2017). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.99, Routledge

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• Psychiatrists look for twisted molecules and defective genes as the causes of schizophrenia, because schizophrenia is the name of a disease. If Christianity or Communism were called diseases, would they then look for the chemical and genetic "causes" of these "conditions"?

  Thomas Szasz

  Names, Molecules, Looks

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1973). “The second sin”, Anchor

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• Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

  Thomas Szasz

  Funny, Happiness, Wisdom

  The Second Sin "Emotions" (1973)

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• Child psychology and child psychiatry cannot be reformed. They must be abolished.

  Thomas Szasz

  Children, Psychology, Psychiatry

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• The Greeks distinguished between good and bad behavior, language that enhanced or diminished persons. Being intoxicated with scientism, we fail to recognize that the seemingly technical terms used to identify psychiatric illnesses and interventions are simply dyphemisms and euphemisms.

  Thomas Szasz

  Greek, Language, Failing

  "The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary". Book by Thomas Szasz, 1990.

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• By pretending that convention is Nature, that disobeying a personal prohibition is a medical illness, they establish themselves as agents of social control and at the same time disguise their punitive interventions in the semantic and social trappings of medical practice.

  Thomas Szasz

  Practice, Agents, Medical

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement”, p.167, Syracuse University Press

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• Individual psychotherapy - that is, engaging a distressed fellow human in a disciplined conversation and human relationship - requires that the therapist have the proper temperament and philosophy of life for such work. By that I mean that the therapist must be patient, modest, and a perceptive listener, rather than a talker and advice-giver.

  Thomas Szasz

  Philosophy, Mean, Advice

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• The Christian ethic did not raise the worth of female life much above the Jewish: nor did the clinical ethic raise it much above the clerical. This is why most of those identified as witches by male inquisitors were women; and why most of those diagnosed as hysterics by male psychiatrists were also women.

  Thomas Szasz

  Christian, Males, Female

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement”, p.162, Syracuse University Press

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• Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.

  Thomas Szasz

  Childhood, Fatherhood, Age

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• How can depression be real if our eyes arent real?

  Thomas Szasz

  Real, Eye, Being Real

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• Like Karl Kraus [Wittgenstein], was seldom pleased by what he saw of the institutions of men, and the idiom of the passerby mostly offended his ear - particularly when they happened to speak philosophically; and like Karl Kraus, he suspected that the institutions could not but be corrupt if the idiom of the race was confused, presumptuous, and vacuous, a fabric of nonsense, untruth, deception, and self-deception.

  Thomas Szasz

  Confused, Men, Race

  "Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry". Book by Thomas Szasz and Karl Kraus (p. 67), March 1, 1990.

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• He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy,
  shall receive his reward from God; for he loveth not the unjust doers.

  Thomas Szasz

  Forgiveness, Enemy, Unjust

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• The many faces of intimacy: the Victorians could experience it through correspondence, but not through cohabitation; contemporary men and women can experience it through fornication, but not through friendship.

  Thomas Szasz

  Men, Cohabitation, Faces

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• The great shift... is the movement away from the value-laden languages of... the "humanities," and toward the ostensibly value-neutral languages of the "sciences." This attempt to escape from, or to deny, valuation is... especially important in psychology... and the so-called social sciences. Indeed, one could go so far as to say that the specialized languages of these disciplines serve virtually no other purpose than to conceal valuation behind an ostensibly scientific and therefore nonvaluational semantic screen.

  Thomas Szasz

  Discipline, Psychology, Humanity

  "Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry". Book by Thomas Szasz and Karl Kraus (p. 44), March 1, 1990.

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• Mental illness, of course, is not literally a "thing" - or physical object - and hence it can "exist" only in the same sort of way in which other theoretical concepts exist.

  Thomas Szasz

  Bipolar, Way, Mental Illness

  "The Myth of Mental Illness" by Thomas Szasz in "American Psycholigist", Volume 15 (pp. 113-118), psychclassics.yorku.ca. 1960.

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• Like fast-food chains, child psychiatric inpatient units and the wholesale psychiatric drugging of children, in and out of hospitals, are recent...and remarkably popular products and practices.

  Thomas Szasz

  Children, Practice, Fast Food

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• We often speak of love when we really should be speaking of the drive to dominate or to master, so as to confirm ourselves as active agents, in control of our own destinies and worthy of respect from others.

  Thomas Szasz

  Love, Respect, Destiny

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• Like the devout theologian seeing the Devil lurking everywhere, Menninger, the devout Freudian, sees aggression.

  Thomas Szasz

  Devil, Aggression, Theologian

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement”, p.172, Syracuse University Press

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• We have, in our day, witnessed the birth of the Therapeutic State. This is perhaps the major implication of psychiatry as an institution of social control.

  Thomas Szasz

  Birth, Social, States

  Thomas Szasz (2017). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.278, Routledge

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• We shall therefore compare the concept of homosexuality as heresy, prevalent in the days of the witch-hunts, with the concept of homosexuality as mental illness, prevalent today.

  Thomas Szasz

  Today, Witch, Mental Illness

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement”, p.160, Syracuse University Press

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• In English-speaking countries, the connection between heresy and homosexuality is expressed through the use of a single word to denote both concepts: buggery. ... Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Third Edition) defines "buggery" as "heresy, sodomy.

  Thomas Szasz

  Country, Connections, Use

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement”, p.165, Syracuse University Press

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