Quotes from book
The Myth of Mental Illness

Thomas Szasz

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a 1961 book by the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, in which the author criticizes psychiatry and argues against the concept of mental illness. It received much publicity, and has become a classic, well known as an argument against the tendency of psychiatrists to label people who are "disabled by living" as "mentally ill".

Thomas Szasz photo

“Our adversaries are not demons, witches, fate, or mental illness. We have no enemy whom we can fight, exorcise, or dispel by "cure." What we do have are problems in living — whether these be biologic, economic, political, or sociopsychological. In this essay I was concerned only with problems belonging in the last mentioned category, and within this group mainly with those pertaining to moral values. The field to which modern psychiatry addresses itself is vast, and I made no effort to encompass it all. My argument was limited to the proposition that mental illness is a myth, whose function it is to disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflicts in human relations.”

Thomas Szasz book The Myth of Mental Illness

"The Myth of Mental Illness" in American Psycholigist, Vol. 15 (1960), p. 115.

Thomas Szasz photo

“Mental illness, of course, is not literally a "thing" — or physical object — and hence it can "exist" only in the same sort of way in which other theoretical concepts exist. Yet, familiar theories are in the habit of posing, sooner or later — at least to those who come to believe in them — as "objective truths" (or "facts"). During certain historical periods, explanatory conceptions such as deities, witches, and microorganisms appeared not only as theories but as self-evident causes of a vast number of events. I submit that today mental illness is widely regarded in a somewhat similar fashion, that is, as the cause of innumerable diverse happenings. As an antidote to the complacent use of the notion of mental illness — whether as a self-evident phenomenon, theory, or cause — let us ask this question: What is meant when it is asserted that someone is mentally ill?
In what follows I shall describe briefly the main uses to which the concept of mental illness has been put. I shall argue that this notion has outlived whatever usefulness it might have had and that it now functions merely as a convenient myth.”

Thomas Szasz book The Myth of Mental Illness

"The Myth of Mental Illness" in American Psycholigist, Vol. 15 (1960), p. 113 http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Szasz/myth.htm

Similar authors

Thomas Szasz photo
Thomas Szasz 70
Hungarian psychiatrist 1920–2012
M. Scott Peck photo
M. Scott Peck 26
American psychiatrist
Imre Kertész photo
Imre Kertész 61
Hungarian writer
Viktor E. Frankl photo
Viktor E. Frankl 64
Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust surviv…
Zsa Zsa Gabor photo
Zsa Zsa Gabor 4
Hungarian-American socialite and actress
C.G. Jung photo
C.G. Jung 257
Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytic…
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk photo
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk 9
First Czechoslovak president
Axel Munthe photo
Axel Munthe 15
Swedish physician
Alfred Adler photo
Alfred Adler 13
Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist…
Eugene Paul Wigner photo
Eugene Paul Wigner 6
mathematician and Nobel Prize-winning physicist