BOOK REVIEW -"THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS," BY PROFESSOR THOMAS SSASZ - COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA

The Myth of Mental Illness
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The 1984 Harper Perennial edition
Author(s)     Thomas Szasz
Country     United States of America
Language     English
Genre(s)     Psychology
Publisher     Harper & Row
Publication date     1961

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a book by Thomas Szasz first published in 1961. It is perhaps the best known argument against the tendency of psychiatrists to label people who are 'disabled by living' as mentally ill. Richard Webster notes that its arguments are similar to his in a number of significant respects, but that their views of hysteria and the work of Jean-Martin Charcot are quite different, since Szasz assumes that hysteria was an emotional problem and that Charcot's patients were not genuinely mentally ill.[1]

The Myth of Mental Illness was described by David Cooper as "a decisive, carefully documented demystification of psychiatric diagnostic labelling in general."[2]
Contents

    1 References
    2 See also
    3 Citation
    4 External links

References

    ^ Webster, Richard (2005). Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. Oxford: The Orwell Press. pp. 595–596. ISBN 0-9515922-5-4.
    ^ Cooper, David (1978). The Language of Madness. London: Allen Lane. p. 129. ISBN 0-7139-1118-2.

See also

    Liberation by Oppression
    The Politics of Experience
    Psychiatry: An Industry of Death

Citation

Szasz, Thomas Stephen, "The myth of mental illness; foundations of a theory of personal conduct", New York : Hoeber-Harper, 1961.
External links

    Text of the original paper The Myth of Mental Illness

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    v
    t
    e

Anti-psychiatry
Topics    

    Antipsychology
    Biopsychiatry controversy
    Critical psychiatry
    Eli Lilly controversies
    History of mental disorders
    Involuntary commitment
    Involuntary treatment
    Medicalization
    Outline of the psychiatric survivors movement
    Political abuse of psychiatry
    Psychiatric survivors movement
    Psychiatry: An Industry of Death
    Psychoanalytic theory
    Recovery model
    Rosenhan experiment
    Self-help groups for mental health
    Therapeutic community

Organizations    

    American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization
    Citizens Commission on Human Rights
    Hearing Voices Network
    Icarus Project
    Mad Pride
    Mental Disability Rights International
    MindFreedom International
    National Empowerment Center
    Radical Psychology Network
    Paranoia Network
    Soteria
    World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry

People    

    Linda Andre
    Franco Basaglia
    Fred Baughman
    Clifford Whittingham Beers
    Lauretta Bender
    Richard Bentall
    Peter Breggin
    Ted Chabasinski
    Judi Chamberlin
    David Cooper
    Lyn Duff
    Michel Foucault
    Leonard Roy Frank
    James Gottstein
    R.D. Laing
    Peter Lehmann
    Kate Millett
    Loren Mosher
    David Oaks
    Elizabeth Packard
    Thomas Szasz
    Robert Whitaker

Publications    

    Against Therapy
    Anatomy of an Epidemic
    Anti-Oedipus
    Asylums (book)
    Crazy Therapies
    Interpretation of Schizophrenia
    Liberation by Oppression: A Comparative Study of Slavery and Psychiatry
    Mad in America
    Madness and Civilization
    The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease
    The Gene Illusion
    The Myth of Mental Illness
    The Politics of Experience
    We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy – And the World's Getting Worse