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Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays
This collection of impassioned essays, published between 1973 and 2006, chronicles Thomas Szasz’s long campaign against the orthodoxies of “pharmacracy,” that is, the alliance of medicine and the state. From “Diagnoses Are Not Diseases” to “The Existential Identity Thief,” “Fatal Temptation,” and “Killing as Therapy,” the book delves into the complex evolution of medicalization, concluding with “ The New Despotism.” In practice, society must draw a line between what counts as medical practice and what does not. Where it draws that line goes far in defining the kinds of laws its citizens live under, the kinds of medical care they receive, and the kinds of lives they are allowed to live.
202 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2007
About the author
Thomas Szasz
100 books327 followersThomas Stephen Szasz (pronounced /sas/; born April 15, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary) was a psychiatrist and academic. He was Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He was a prominent figure in the antipsychiatry movement, a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as of scientism. He is well known for his books, The Myth of Mental Illness (1960) 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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 21, 2022
angry man shouts at cloud
one star.
this entire book reads like the result of 4 decades of pent up emotion that the author has hidden whilst begrudging others for not seeing more than a critique of psychiatry. he talks of the virtue of living, of pain as holy in a way i understand and agree with, yet he fails to examine his own contradictions. he speaks of how we are no longer allowed to suffer, to die on our own terms without interventions, and he is right. in the same breath he speaks of what he only sees as an industry whilst failing to critique his own and make entirely contradictory claims that im frankly shocked werent at least edited out.
he then says that if you overeat you get diagnosed with bulimia - which should be the the bare minimum insight into psychiatric terminology any doctor should have - especially when critiquing said field of study and believing that their own critique is 'in depth'. he critiques the infantilization of the so-called 'mentally ill', and he is right, but he sounds much like every old man i meet: worshipping pain as the ultimate insight and nuance as an illness in any population rather than arguing to give people back their rights.
he takes great issue with capitalism but has no understanding of his own discomfort or suffering that can lead him down a path of critiquing what drives the notion of healing as dogma. this of course is not strange, as Szaz is a conservative libertarian of the american kind. he is informed only by patriarchal european colonialism. in fact, if i remember it correctly he writes how we began institutionalizing our loved ones around the same time as we engaged in the 'virtue of private property'.
his entire argument is that mental illness doesnt exist and had i known anything about Szaz before reading this, i wouldnt have read it. i dont personally believe in mental illness per se, but these states of being are very real. i experience them myself. i dont think im sick and the lived experience of feeling healthy has also ensured my overall health has gotten better. i am chronically ill, which not even Szaz himself would argue with. he would simply argue that the reason for said illness is entirely unknowable and random, and that it couldnt improve. well, it has.
im sure he is rolling in his grave at the notion that the brain is not the only thing affected by trauma - or that we are more than machinery. he cannot look objectively at his own field of study but waves his arms about as though the reader is in part psychiatrist and he must convict us. how medicine and psychiatry are merging and changing in ways that are in fact helping people change their own patterns he would merely glance at and deem 'bad' does not matter, because forgiveness does not reside here. his world is a black and white vignette set to the mirror images of Szaz himself, an equally terrifying and boring insight that i need to shower to get rid of. i am insulted that i learned more about Szaz insufferable self than how to critique psychiatry.
i dont disagree with Szaz that the state shouldnt have inherent claim to our lives, in fact i nodded enthusiastically reading most of it when it wasnt entirely self-involved. i felt seen and real as he spoke against involuntary "treatment". i was uncomfortable and entirely unsure on his point about medically assisted suicide, especially as i lost my only sister to suicide. i was amused by his critique of the DSM as bible and agreed with much of it, though he has the rhetoric of a toddler left without dinner. if im reading the book already, you dont have to keep yelling that i should. so much weird and misplaced anger.
i kept looking at the date it was published, hoping that it wasnt less than 2 decades ago which could explain some of Szaz dogmatic tunnelvision, but it was published in 2007. i hope that i have the sense to not continue to publish indignant navel gazing branded critique of a field of study i refuse to study at the ripe old age of 86 and can leave that to the informed.
ultimately i forced myself to read this way the same way i force myself to eat a burnt, tough steak. with spite.
one star.
this entire book reads like the result of 4 decades of pent up emotion that the author has hidden whilst begrudging others for not seeing more than a critique of psychiatry. he talks of the virtue of living, of pain as holy in a way i understand and agree with, yet he fails to examine his own contradictions. he speaks of how we are no longer allowed to suffer, to die on our own terms without interventions, and he is right. in the same breath he speaks of what he only sees as an industry whilst failing to critique his own and make entirely contradictory claims that im frankly shocked werent at least edited out.
he then says that if you overeat you get diagnosed with bulimia - which should be the the bare minimum insight into psychiatric terminology any doctor should have - especially when critiquing said field of study and believing that their own critique is 'in depth'. he critiques the infantilization of the so-called 'mentally ill', and he is right, but he sounds much like every old man i meet: worshipping pain as the ultimate insight and nuance as an illness in any population rather than arguing to give people back their rights.
he takes great issue with capitalism but has no understanding of his own discomfort or suffering that can lead him down a path of critiquing what drives the notion of healing as dogma. this of course is not strange, as Szaz is a conservative libertarian of the american kind. he is informed only by patriarchal european colonialism. in fact, if i remember it correctly he writes how we began institutionalizing our loved ones around the same time as we engaged in the 'virtue of private property'.
his entire argument is that mental illness doesnt exist and had i known anything about Szaz before reading this, i wouldnt have read it. i dont personally believe in mental illness per se, but these states of being are very real. i experience them myself. i dont think im sick and the lived experience of feeling healthy has also ensured my overall health has gotten better. i am chronically ill, which not even Szaz himself would argue with. he would simply argue that the reason for said illness is entirely unknowable and random, and that it couldnt improve. well, it has.
im sure he is rolling in his grave at the notion that the brain is not the only thing affected by trauma - or that we are more than machinery. he cannot look objectively at his own field of study but waves his arms about as though the reader is in part psychiatrist and he must convict us. how medicine and psychiatry are merging and changing in ways that are in fact helping people change their own patterns he would merely glance at and deem 'bad' does not matter, because forgiveness does not reside here. his world is a black and white vignette set to the mirror images of Szaz himself, an equally terrifying and boring insight that i need to shower to get rid of. i am insulted that i learned more about Szaz insufferable self than how to critique psychiatry.
i dont disagree with Szaz that the state shouldnt have inherent claim to our lives, in fact i nodded enthusiastically reading most of it when it wasnt entirely self-involved. i felt seen and real as he spoke against involuntary "treatment". i was uncomfortable and entirely unsure on his point about medically assisted suicide, especially as i lost my only sister to suicide. i was amused by his critique of the DSM as bible and agreed with much of it, though he has the rhetoric of a toddler left without dinner. if im reading the book already, you dont have to keep yelling that i should. so much weird and misplaced anger.
i kept looking at the date it was published, hoping that it wasnt less than 2 decades ago which could explain some of Szaz dogmatic tunnelvision, but it was published in 2007. i hope that i have the sense to not continue to publish indignant navel gazing branded critique of a field of study i refuse to study at the ripe old age of 86 and can leave that to the informed.
ultimately i forced myself to read this way the same way i force myself to eat a burnt, tough steak. with spite.
August 15, 2011
definitely hyper-radical at points but an exciting and stimulating read
inspiring if not everything resonates
inspiring if not everything resonates
February 7, 2014
stop trying to make me feel guilty about my pill habit
November 1, 2021
Ļoti interesants redzējums - psihiatra acīm par psihiatrijas jomu un tās vietu citu nozaru vidū.
Lauž stereotipus un aicina uz dzīvi - cilvēka atbildību par sevi, savu garīgo un fizisko veselību un pieaugšanu - palūkoties neierastā veidā.
Apstākļu sakritības dēļ, vienlaicīgi ar šo darbu, iepazinu Charles Dickens "The Old Curiosity Shop, kurā pārpārēm materiāla par veselo un slimo / normu un nenormālību.
Tomēr jāatzīst, ka stereotipi "nelūzt" ātri un būs vēl kāds brīdis vajadzīgs prāta "palocīšanai", lai Thomas Szasz piedāvātais redzējums izprastos vairāk.
Lauž stereotipus un aicina uz dzīvi - cilvēka atbildību par sevi, savu garīgo un fizisko veselību un pieaugšanu - palūkoties neierastā veidā.
Apstākļu sakritības dēļ, vienlaicīgi ar šo darbu, iepazinu Charles Dickens "The Old Curiosity Shop, kurā pārpārēm materiāla par veselo un slimo / normu un nenormālību.
Tomēr jāatzīst, ka stereotipi "nelūzt" ātri un būs vēl kāds brīdis vajadzīgs prāta "palocīšanai", lai Thomas Szasz piedāvātais redzējums izprastos vairāk.
June 29, 2019
"The old quacks peddled fake cures to treat real diseases. The new quacks peddle fake diseases to justify chemical pacification and medical coercion. The old quacks were politically harmless. They could harm individuals only with those individuals' consent. The new quacks are a serious threat to individual liberty and personal responsibility. They are agents of the therapeutic state who can and do harm individuals both with and without those individuals' consent. Theocracy is the alliance of religion with the state. Pharmocracy is the alliance of medicine with the state."
"Medicine began with sick persons seeking relief from their suffering. Psychiatry began with the relatives of unwanted, troublesome persons seeking relief from the embarrassment and suffering their kin caused them."
"To see through the confusions embodied in the image of the mentally ill person as 'not himself' we must be clear about the connection between behavior and disease. Every part of our body influences our behavior. If we have arthritis, we cannot move normally. If we have glaocaoma we cannot see normally. The organ affecting behavior most directly is the brain. If it is seriously damaged we die. If less seriously damaged, we lose a wide range of bodily functions, such as the ability to see or speak. The question we must keep in mind is: When and why do we attribute a persons behavior to brain disease and when and why do we not do so? Briefly: The answer is that we often attribute bad behavior to disease to excuse the agent, never attribute good behavior to disease lest we deprive the agent of credit, and typically attribute good behavior to free will and insist that bad behavior called "mental illness" is a no-fault act of nature."
"At the beginning of the trade in lunacy the individuals incarcerated as insane were members of the propertied classes who posed a problem to their families. The sane relatives' problem was not finding a home for a homeless person, but finding a justification of removing the lawful occupant of a home from his residence and relocating him...."
"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." [Gilbert K Chesterton]
"Physicians, especially psychiatrists, have been waging war on autonomy for more than 200 years."
"Physicians attacked autonomy along three fronts, corresponding to three basic human urges--sex, drugs, and death. Supported by pseudoscience and the state, they declared self-abuse, self-medication, and self-killing diseases and punished them as offenses against public health and hence the public good. The free man owns himself. The therapeutic state prohibits self-ownership."
"Medicine began with sick persons seeking relief from their suffering. Psychiatry began with the relatives of unwanted, troublesome persons seeking relief from the embarrassment and suffering their kin caused them."
"To see through the confusions embodied in the image of the mentally ill person as 'not himself' we must be clear about the connection between behavior and disease. Every part of our body influences our behavior. If we have arthritis, we cannot move normally. If we have glaocaoma we cannot see normally. The organ affecting behavior most directly is the brain. If it is seriously damaged we die. If less seriously damaged, we lose a wide range of bodily functions, such as the ability to see or speak. The question we must keep in mind is: When and why do we attribute a persons behavior to brain disease and when and why do we not do so? Briefly: The answer is that we often attribute bad behavior to disease to excuse the agent, never attribute good behavior to disease lest we deprive the agent of credit, and typically attribute good behavior to free will and insist that bad behavior called "mental illness" is a no-fault act of nature."
"At the beginning of the trade in lunacy the individuals incarcerated as insane were members of the propertied classes who posed a problem to their families. The sane relatives' problem was not finding a home for a homeless person, but finding a justification of removing the lawful occupant of a home from his residence and relocating him...."
"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." [Gilbert K Chesterton]
"Physicians, especially psychiatrists, have been waging war on autonomy for more than 200 years."
"Physicians attacked autonomy along three fronts, corresponding to three basic human urges--sex, drugs, and death. Supported by pseudoscience and the state, they declared self-abuse, self-medication, and self-killing diseases and punished them as offenses against public health and hence the public good. The free man owns himself. The therapeutic state prohibits self-ownership."
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December 15, 2007I just want to have this book very, very much... But it will take some time till I get it.
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April 1, 2009Reviewed here.
September 19, 2016
"Since theocracy is the rule of God or its priests, and democracy the rule of the people or of the majority, pharmacracy is therefore the rule of medicine or of doctors."
March 25, 2020
This book was very good. In particular I liked how Szasz pointed out the hypocrisy and double standards surrounding issues of doctor-assisted suicide.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews