Overview

Dr. Thomas Szasz on the shortcomings of commitment procedures, and the inadequacies of protections afforded patients in psychiatric institutions. He alerts us to the existing and potential abuses of human rights in mental health programs and procedures.

Full Product Details

9780815602422

Table of Contents

Reviews

Dr. Szasz makes a real contribution by alerting us to the abuses--existing and potential-of human rights inherent in enlightened mental health programs and procedures. He points out, with telling examples, shortcomings in commitment procedures, inadequacies in the protections afforded patients in mental institutions and the dangers of over-reliance on psychiatric expert opinion by judges and juries.-- ""Arthur J. Goldberg, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, American Bar Association Journal"" Dr. Thomas Szasz shows how the medicine administered in psychiatric institutions is a sort of punishment. . . . [He] declares psychiatry to be a new form of social engineering--gravely dangerous where coercive. . . . This bold and iconoclastic work takes up most of the faults committed in the name of mental illness, and lays down short-run and long-run solutions.-- ""New York Times Book Review""

Author Information

Thomas Szasz is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. His books include Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry, The Manufacture of Madness, Ideology and Insanity, Ceremonial Chemistry, The Myth of Psychotherapy, Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, and The Medicalization of Everyday Life, all published by Syracuse University Press.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available