The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement
By:
Thomas Stephen Szasz
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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Description:
In this seminal work, Dr. Szasz examines the similarities between the Inquisition and institutional psychiatry. His purpose is to show "that the belief in mental illness and the social actions to which it leads have the same moral implications and political consequences as had the belief in witchcraft and the social actions to which it led."
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
This inquisition happened to me. - This is a great book that you should buy. I am a survivor of the modern inquisition, coercive psychiatry, and Szasz helps people like me understand that society has always scapegoated people and we humans are very susceptible to giant false ideas like psychiatry, that permeate society and I can only hope the one day, sooner rather than later, humans move on from psychiatry's false paradigm or at least separate psychiatry and state, so that I can feel safe. Having your life destroyed by these dangerous fraudulent beliefs is something you never get over. It shakes your faith in humanity to the core. I can take solace in the fact that there is a tiny minority of fellow travelers who understand the truth, but it is a lonely life, being labeled 'mentally ill' in a world full of psychiatry true believers, when you're not a believer yourself. It would be nice if people started waking up to the violence that is done to us by coercive psychiatry. It sure would be nice to no longer have to live in fear of being handed over to these violent quacks ever again.
Customer Review: 2 out of 5
More that needs to be revealed - Didn't read it. Bought it just to prove a point that my account and internet activity was being monitored!
US Intelligence agencies use and experiement with this stuff too. Try searching Amazon for more related topics and see what you get. Also, pick up the autobiography of J. Edgar Hoover.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Thomas Szasz: The Manufacturing of Madness A comparative study of - Thomas Szasz: The Manufacturing of Madness A Comparative study of
Creating Mentall Illness... They create what they ment to cure.
That is fraud. They call it "helping".
If anyone offers you that kind of help, run the other way!
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Brilliant, demolishes homosexuality as mental illness - One particular chapter -- "The Product Conversion" -- does a brilliant job of demolishing the theory that homosexuality is a mental illness. It dissects every argument made to this effect, and shows that homosexuality is nothing more than a variant of human sexuality, in much the same way that being left-handed is nothing more than a variant of laterality. Szasz does a brilliant job of showing the hypocrisy of the medico-legal establishment in terms of that establishment (1) declaring that homosexuality is a mental illness (this is no longer the official position of the American Psychological or American Psychiatric Associations) while (2) declaring that homosexuality is a crime. It cannot be both, as Szasz points out in his analysis -- while criminals can be mentally ill, homosexual status as opposed to conduct cannot be both criminal **and** a mental illness. The book is worth purchasing for this chapter alone, and I recommend it to any person interested in beating back efforts to remedicalize and recrimenalize the status of gay people. This chapter also reveals the manner in which religious ideology masquerades as psychiatric doctrine, ruthlessly exposing the epistemological error made by those who cling to outdated and cruel theories in this regard.
Philip Chandler
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
A Totally Surprising and Amazing Book - I first came across this book about 15 years ago while going through some stacks in the library of a community college in San Bruno CA. What stunned me at first was the equation of modern psychiatry being the child (i.e. direct decendant) of the Inquisition. I made a copy of the book but misplaced it. Even so, I thought about the little bit I read of it for years. It never left my mind.Then the issue of manufacturing a person's madness came intimately into my life during the past two years or so. I found a used copy (maybe Amazon.com) and read it within the past three months. This book literally armed me with arguments that permitted me to persuade others--those holding the keys of bondage--that their system was flawed, and it resulted in the release of a person from incarceration in a mental institution. Since that time this person has been seen by a number of mental health professionals none of which attach a mental diagnosis to him. I think the true value of this book to me is the psychoanalytic quality of the writing and its systematic approach. I would see it as being very hard to find Szasz's arguments as flawed, although I can see how some aspects of his thought maybe viewed as being exaggerated. Still, sometimes we all have to exaggerate a problem in order to expand it be able to sufficiently see what is actually going on. I think he does this eloquently and elegantly. There were times when I was reading the book when I thought I might not get any more out of it, and I was tempted to set it aside, and I am so glad that I didn't. I feel now that this text was a very personal thing to him, and it comes out in the end, although it might not be completely evident. I got a great deal out of reading this book. I would recommend it to anybody whose life has been affected by fear, doubt, superstition, dogmatic therapists, etc. Just knowing how the system is set up institutionally can assist one in making better choices and articulating your views, particularly when they are based on sensitive feelings. Many mental health professionals like to come across at times as being god-like, but those who do come across this way are often insecure and exploit others to hide their own deficiencies. This book truly helps in being able to uncover that deception in a way that you can go nose to nose with the inquisitors of this generation who can be very dangerous and who can create a tremendous amount of damage. It is scary, but it is far more scary without the knowledge Szasz has so generoously provided us, and which is made even more poignant given the persecutions he received from others within his own field.
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