Вера в свободу: Практики психиатрии и принципы либертарианства

by Thomas Szasz, Томас Сас, Азгар Ишкильдин (Translator)

«Мое святая святых — это... свобода от силы и лжи, в чем бы последние две ни выражались».

Этими словами Чехова из письма к издателю профессор Томас Сас предварил предисловие к изданию русского перевода своего фундаментального труда — «Миф душевной болезни».

«Вера в свободу: практики психиатрии и принципы либертарианства», написанная спустя 43 года, представляет наиболее глубокое рассмотрение Томасом Сасом угроз личной свободе, порождаемых слиянием психиатрии и государства.

Почему и как лучшие умы Запада, размышлявшие о политической и экономической свободе, теряют присутствие духа перед психиатрической покровительственной риторикой?

Ответы на этот вопрос — на примерах Дж. С. Милля и Б. Рассела, Айн Рэнд и Р. Нозика, Л. фон Мизеса и Ф. Хайека, М. Ротбарда и Д. Макклоски — вооружают обычного человека фундаментальным пониманием проблем повседневного существования, которое, строго говоря, читатель вряд ли отыщет где-либо еще.

Книга будет полезна врачам, юристам, и каждому, кто интересуется как проблемами экономики и психиатрии, так и понятиями свободы и ответственности.

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Thomas 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.

Reviews

[Azgar Ishkildin]

"My holy of holies is ... freedom from violence and lies in whatever form they express themselves". With this citation from Anton Pavlovich Chekhov's letter to his publisher, Dr. Szasz started his foreword to the Russian edition of his fundamental work "The Myth of the Mental Illness."

The "Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices"written 43 years later, provides the deepest one among the considerations, written by Dr. Szasz, of the threats to personal freedom, created by the merger of the state and psychiatry.

How and why the best minds of the West who have ever contemplated the issues of political and economic freedom, are loosing the presence of mind, when encountering the paternalistic rhetorics of psychiatry?

The answers to this question, considered with stellar examples from classics of liberalism to creators of the Austrian school of economics and to leading libertarians of the present time, are equipping the average person with the fundamental understanding of the problems of daily existence, which, strictly speaking, the reader is unlikely to find anywhere else.

In addition to everyone, the book will be useful to doctors, lawyers, and anyone interested in the issues of either economics and psychiatry, or the concepts of freedom and responsibility.

[Aaron Makepeace · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are many psychotherapists and counsellors out there who look upon the fields of psychiatry and psychology with very similar opinions to Szasz, albeit perhaps for different reasons and with different lexicon.

This book adds depth to the view that recent and modern psychiatry is very much incompatible with moral values of liberty and freedom and that its purpose is largely to uphold the state.

Those who have read R.D Laing or have researched his work will find a familiar theoretical flavour regarding mental illness in this book. The explicit link to libertarianism and the simple moral value of freedom is what differs this work from others.

The chapters on Ayn Rand, Hayek, Rothbard etc, were especially interesting, though i think Szasz is somewhat unfair on Rand for not ever tackling the topic of psychiatry explicitly and in public.

What can felt running through this book, is regret that so few people in the libertarian sphere have recognised the dangers the practice of psychiatry brings to liberty, self ownership and law. Upon writing this, Szasz turns his attention from those posing the dangers, to those who should be highlighting them.

Its a great read for those interested in the subjects it encompasses.