The idea of insanity pervades every aspect of our daily lives. Thomas Szasz contends that the term actually functions as a euphemism for problems in living, as an excuse for crime and misbehaviour, as a stigma for invalidating adversaries - and, generally, as a metaphor and legal fiction. In "Insanity", Dr. Szasz presents a systematic articulation of the precise character and practical consequences of the idea of mental illness. He shows the way to a better understanding of this almost universally misunderstood condition by first establishing the scientific criteria and linguistic conventions we use for deciding what constitutes bodily disease, and then demonstrating the metaphorical character of the "diseases" that affect the mind rather than the brain. This book was originally published in 1987 by John Wiley.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

a bit of a crackpot:

Let's face it. Szasz is a bit of a crackpot. He has a political and libertarian agenda that was original when he first came out but after he sided the right-to-lifers over the Terri Schiavo fiasco, and threw the full weight of his whole argument behind such dubious positions, his arguments are now, for me, tarnished. It's okay to have an agenda, but state it and don't politicize it and make it a polemic. In other words he needs to be scientific and straightforward in making much of his arguments. I'm all... more info

Correct, but not true:

My title refers to Heidegger's characterization of many received views--typically, they are OK in a restricted context, but miss the boat in a broader sense. I like Szasz (even have had my own work compared favorably to his once--in a letter to Editor, Am J. of Psychotherapy, in response to a paper of mine on the false memory syndrome), but, like others have in the past, see him as going overboard in some ways. Just because the notion of mental illness is so flawed and indefensible, as are the various... more info

Psychiatric Enslavement: Madmen or Mad Doctors?:

In _Ideology and Insanity_ Thomas Szasz, professor of psychiatry and libertarian activist, presents a view of the dark side of the psychiatric establishment. Szasz is known for being one of the originators of the anti-psychiatry point of view in the 1960s (along with such others as R. D. Laing) and is a noted libertarian in the school of such individuals as Karl Popper, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek. In this book, Szasz makes the rather odd, indeed astonishing claim, that mental illness is entirely... more info

Szasz' best book:

I strongly disagree with the Library Journal reviewer that this book is "not much of an addition to the author's previous work". Among his many works, this book is by far the clearest and best documented statement of his basic proposition that mental illness is a myth. Really, this is the book that his second and groundbreaking book "The Myth of Mental Illness" should have been.
I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Szasz in the mid-1990s, and I told him that I thought his best books were "The Manufacture of... more info

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