Editorial Review:

The modern penchant for transforming human problems into "diseases" and judicial sanctions into "treatments," replacing the rule of law with the rule of medical discretion, leads to a type of government social critic Thomas Szasz calls "pharmacracy." He warns that the creeping substitution of democracy for pharmacracy--private personal concerns increasingly perceived as requiring a medical-political response--inexorably erodes personal freedom and dignity.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Quack!:

Szasz and the reviewers fo this book have obviously never suffered from nor known anyone who suffers from a serious mental illness. Far from being just bad or unwanted behaviors or 'fake diseases', mental illness is a devastating disease that ruins lives and often kills its victims.
After years of denial and attemps to control my own behavior, my life spun out ot control and I went from a respected professional in my community to a manic-depressive psychotic, roaming the streets delusional,... more info

The Politics of Medicine:

This is a great book for laying to rest some orthodox but wrong ideas about our mental health. Szasz shows us that the orthodox way is not necessarily the right way. Certainly our own doctors are not going to blow the whistle on themselves, are they? This revolutionary psychiatrist shows us the real path to health, pointing us away from the wrong direction that the pharmaceutical companies have been leading us, and unfortunately, leading our doctors as well. It's a case of the fox guarding the henhouse.
... more info

this book could save your life:

Pharmacracy

Do you care that a psychiatrist is a doctor who prescribes drugs to change people's brains without ever actually examining those people's brains? Do you worry that nobody knows exactly what the long-term effect of these drugs are that we are now being given for bi-polar disorder, for attention deficit disorder, for depression or for anxiety; or even if they are really doing us more harm than good? Do you know how doctors today are becoming more and more controlled and subverted by the... more info

Thomas Szasz Does It Again:

Dr. Szasz, now 81 years old, has done it again: explained what's going on in the minds of psychiatrists and their adulators from the Surgeon General on down. And why.

For example, he tells us how doctors are really paid and explains the corrupting effect of third party reimbursement by DRG (Diagnosis Related Groups)on the most important and the kindest thing any doctor can do: make an accurate diagnosis.

There are new insights, new quotes and the usual entertaining anecdotes and fastidious... more info

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