Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry (Hardcover)

by Thomas Szasz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A powerful and fittingly impassioned indictment of psychiatrists who use coercion to `treat' patients by the psychiatrist who has done more than anyone else to challenge psychiatry to abandon the destructive use of force and replace it with consent, trust, and adherence to the Hippocratic injunction to `do no harm.'" -- George J. Annas, professor of health law, bioethics, and human rights, Boston University Schools of Public Health, Medicine, and Law

"Bit by `barbarous and bizarre' bit, Thomas Szasz dismantles psychiatry's rickety scaffolding, exposing over two centuries of physical torture and tortured logic. Professor Szasz takes the necessary analytical and empirical solvents to this state-empowered fraternity of sercereres. He also supplies the only salve for the psychiatric violence he correctly dubs `psychiatric slavery': abolition: Now, `Let the sunshine in.'" -- Ilana Mercer, libertarian columnist and writer, WorldNetDaily.com

"Nearly all books on the history of psychiatry have been written by people who wholeheartedly believe in the reality of `mental illness.' At long last we have a history of psychiatry by the very man who nearly fifty years ago declared mental illness to be a myth. Stripping away centuries of self-serving propaganda written by psychiatry's acolytes, Dr. Thomas Szasz gives us a radically new look at the history of the world's most dangerous political religions. From the eighteenth century's `trade in lunacy' to the nineteenth century's `insane asylums' to the twentieth century's `snake pits' to the twenty-first century's `outpatient commitment,' Szasz gives us a radically different perspective on the major episodes in the history of psychiatry. After Coercion as Cure, we will never be able to look at psychiatry again as a legitimate claimant to the throne of medical science." -- Keith Hoeller, editor, Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry

Product Description
In this provocative new study of the history of pschiatry, Szasz challenges conventional beliefs about it. He asserts that, in fact, psychiatrists are not concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of bona fide illnesses. He contends that the truth about psychiatry, its self-evident ends, and the means used to achieve them is sociallly unacceptable. Psychiatric tradition, social expectation, and the law make it clear that coercion is the profession's determining characteristic.

Psychiatrists may "diagnose" or "treat" people without their consent or even against their clearly expressed wishes. Voluntary and involuntary psychiatric interventions are as different as are sexual relations between consenting adults and the sexual violence we call "rape." Sometimes psychiatrists deal with voluntary patients. It is necessary, however, not merely to distinguish between coerced and consensual psychiatry, but to contrast them. The term "psychiatry" ought to be applied to one or the other, but not both.

The coercive character of psychiatry was more apparent in the past than it is now. The asylum inmate was incarcerated against his will. Insanity was synonymous with unfitness for liberty. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a new type of psychiatric relationship developed, consisting of persons experiencing so-called "nervous symptoms," seeking help from the family physician or a specialist in "nervous disorders." This led psychiatrists to distinguish between two kinds of mental diseases: neuroses and psychoses. Persons who complained of their own behavior were classified as neurotic, whereas persons about whose behavior others complained were classified as psychotic. The legal, medical, psychiatric, and social denial of this simple distinction and its far-reaching implications undergirds the house of cards that is modern psychiatry.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 293 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers; 1 edition (July 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765803798
• ISBN-13: 978-0765803795
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #744,949 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive History of Psychiatry for those who know Dr. Szasz, September 22, 2007

By	Arkadiy Dubovoy (Virginia) - See all my reviews

Coercion as Cure is a history of psychiatry through the prism of Dr. Szasz' views, convictions, and moral arguments. The particular advantage of this book is the fact that Dr. Szasz has not only been observing the development of psychiatry for the last 60 years, but actively participated in the events.

The book is well researched and referenced, the writing style is gripping, and the material is organized reasonably well. There is a large amount of factual historical information, e.g., almost a page-long quotation from President Franklin Pierce's veto on p. 97 is truly remarkable, as well as Cerletti's descriptions of the ECT "discovery" on pp. 129-132.
Overall, I found the book to be well balanced between the presented facts and the author's polemic.

You will not find consistent logical explanations of Dr. Szasz' views on mental illness and modern psychiatry in Coercion as Cure (which would be clearly beyond the scope of the book), but the book is, naturally, based on those views. If you are new to Dr. Szasz' writing, it probably makes more sense for you to start with some of his earlier books, familiarize yourself with the main concepts, and then read Coercion as Cure.
If, on the other hand, you know Dr. Szasz' work and arguments, you will certainly enjoy reading this book.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Objective View of Psychiatry by a Psychiatrist, December 18, 2007

By	E. Mccloskey "EM" (Westfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Everyone should read this book! I have read a number of Dr. Szasz's other books (also highly recommended). In this book he debunks the myth that psychiatry is a legitimate medical science and exposes it for what it is by tracing its history of patient abuse. After reading this book and looking at the many advertisements for psychiatric drugs that I see on TV and in women's magazines, I realized that the current psychiatric drug machine is just part of the history of psychiatry inventing "cures" that don't work and then moving on to other "cures" that don't work. This is especially true for the captives in psychiatric institutions.

I would advise any potential student of psychiatry to read this book critically and consider what it says -- hopefully before enrolling in a medical school. Also, any existing or potential psychiatric patient would find this book enlightening. After reading this book I also question the use of psychiatry in courts and I would question the rights of judges to sentence people to psychiatric "treatment" or even evaluation. Based on the contents of this book, psychiatric "treatment" should be considered a violation of the cruel and unusual punishment clause in the Constitution of the United States.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A harshly critical assessment of the modern psychiatric medical system., December 2, 2007

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Thomas Szasz (Professor of Psychiatry emeritus, State University of New York) presents Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry, a stinging indictment that dares to question conventional beliefs, and deconstructs modern psychiatry itself, arguing that it has no right to be dubbed a medical science. Coercion as Cure takes its title from Szasz's observation that the defining features of psychiatry is its use of force - though sometimes psychiatrists deal with voluntary patients, all too often psychiatrists "diagnose" and "treat" people without their consent or against their clearly expressed wishes. "The psychiatrist's basic social mandate is the coercive-paternalistic protection of the mental patient from himself and the public from the mental patient. Yet, in the professional literature as well as the popular media, this is the least noted feature of psychiatry as a medical specialty... It would be difficult to exaggerate the extent to which historians of psychiatry as well as mental health professionals and journalists ignore, deny, and rationalize the involuntary, coerced, forcibly imposed nature of psychiatric treatments." A harshly critical assessment of the modern psychiatric medical system.