The renowned gadfly of psychiatry examines the growing practice of coercing individuals (especially adults economically dependent on others) allegedly in their own best interest. Demonstrates how moral man has been replaced by mental patient in modern society, how sin has been converted to mental illness as a way of controlling undesirables. Deals with psychiatry as a social control medium, how it disposes of those persons unwanted by society, and presents a compelling argument for limiting coercive powers of psychiatry to take away people's personal freedom and relieve them of their personal responsibility.
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The renowned gadfly of psychiatry examines the growing practice of coercing individuals (especially adults economically dependent on others) allegedly in their own best interest. Demonstrates how moral man has been replaced by mental patient in modern society, how sin has been converted to mental illness as a way of controlling undesirables. Deals with psychiatry as a social control medium, how it disposes of those persons unwanted by society, and presents a compelling argument for limiting coercive powers of psychiatry to take away people's personal freedom and relieve them of their personal responsibility.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Independent Thought Disorder,
By Mel Collins (Vermont) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted (Paperback)
The idea that those in our society whose beliefs differ from the norm must be drugged and/or imprisoned in the name of compassion is so widely accepted that it is rarely challenged. If Jesus Christ were alive today, he would have been arrested for disorderly conduct at the temple, given a court ordered psychiatric evaluation, diagnosed with irritable mania/Bi-Polar disorder and drugged into a near comatose stupor until he renounced his beliefs and conformed to the beliefs of those in power (pharisees.)
The idea that individuals who have committed no crime can be stripped of their civil rights on the word of a single medical opinion is apalling considering that some patients have received as many as 50 different psychiatric diagnosis, many contradictary. Institutionalization and forced medication with dangerous psychoactive drugs constitutes assault and has lead to death and disability. It is a means of social control. It is often little more than chemical assault by people in positions of power against people without power. Often abused women were locked in a Mental Hospital for life on the word of an abusive husband or resentful/dishonest family member. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was not recognized as a disorder until the 1970's. Prior to that it was often mistaken for Paranoid Schizophrenia or Psychosis and treated with insulin/electro shock or lobotomy rather than traditional psychotherapy turning Post Traumatic Stress survivors into the walking dead. And all this is in the name of compassion. Certainly this is cruel and abusive yet it continues today. This book exposes what modern psychiatry wants to conceal: the brutal, dehumanizing power of psychiatry as a means of social control.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cruel Compassion: Szasz's Oxymoron Underlying Psychiatric Control,
By
This review is from: Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted (Paperback)
Capitalism is the hallmark of the American economy. Americans embrace the notion of producing and distributing goods and services in a free market, which undergoes minimal government regulation. This type of economic trade works for and satisfies most people in a democratic society, particularly those with adequate financial stability. For some unfortunate individuals, however, the market is not entirely "free," and government regulation is all but minimal. These individuals are forced to be consumers of government-provided goods and services against their will. Although those found guilty of criminal acts are deprived of liberty, denied certain legal rights, and subjected to government coercion, these hapless individuals are not criminals. In most instances, these individuals have neither performed criminal acts, posed as threats to anyone or anything, nor been accused of any wrongdoing per se. The only accusation made against these individuals is that they are "insane;" furthermore, coercing these individuals to adhere to government regulation is justifiable in a court of law.
American society and economy has a deleterious system of subjecting insane, or "mentally ill," individuals to psychiatric control. This theme pervades Thomas Szasz's book, Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of America's Unwanted. According to Szasz, there exists an age-old process of storing and coercing society's unwanted individuals (viz., indigents, debtors, epileptics, children, homeless individuals, and the mentally ill). The beginning of this process can be traced back to the early 17th-century English Poor Laws, which were enacted to punish economically unproductive indigents. Between then and now, debtors, or insolvents, were contractually bound to serve time in debtor's prisons; epileptics were medicated (i.e., given neuroleptic, or antipsychotic, drugs), sterilized, and stored in colonies; troublesome children were given arbitrary psychiatric diagnoses and sentenced to psychiatric hospitals, or "madhouses;" and homeless individuals were housed in economically lucrative, government-provided domiciles. As for the mentally ill, they were originally placed in asylums and madhouses (i.e., were institutionalized) under the coercion of a psychiatrist, and as a result of an anti-psychiatric movement and Szasz himself, they are currently coerced into deinstitutionalization and ingestion of psychiatric mediation. While many of these acts may appear to be compassionate and altruistic methods performed by self-righteous mental health professionals in order to help or correct the "less fortunate," Szasz asserts that this facade is far from the truth. These motives underlying these acts are often economic. For example, the frequency of psychiatric diagnoses in America is highly influenced and regulated by health insurance companies and government-funded programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. Another popular motive for psychiatric institutionalization derived from the phenomenon of caregivers no longer wanting to care for their mentally ill family members. These caregivers basically used the system to pawn off unwanted, embarrassing, and/or interfering friends and relatives to well-paid, government-employed psychiatrists. Psychiatric institutionalization was masked as a system using medicine to treat "real" illness. Psychiatry attempted to mirror and mimic medicine by making absurd claims about the success and recovery rate of their often iatrogenic procedures. Some of these procedures include the infamous lobotomy, electric shock, the dissemination of neuroleptic drugs (historically for epileptics and often inducing tardive dyskinesia), and insulin shock and coma. Additionally, psychiatric patients were belittled, deprived of dignity through their role in the therapist-patient relationship, and institutionalized, becoming dependent on the institution for survival. Following the institutionalization era, patients were then deinstitutionalized (i.e., funneled out of the hospitals into nursing homes, halfway houses, etc.). Psychiatric deinstitutionalization was justified by spurious claims that medications, such as chlorpromazine (marketed as Thorazine), were effective remedies. In actuality, psychiatric patients were forced from their "homes" (i.e., hospitals), heavily sedated, and sent to live in the streets. Currently, those perceived as mentally ill can be coerced into psychological examination and medication. Szasz illustrates the pitfalls of psychiatric coercion and enlightens the reader to the economic policy and cruelty underlying these seemingly benevolent interventions (hence Cruel Compassion). He not only believes that these interventions are pejorative, which is ironically antagonistic to the intention, but also that mental illness is a myth (i.e., fictitious) with psychiatric diagnoses serving as medical metaphors. Additionally, he strongly recommends and supports the notion of abolishing all involuntary, coercive psychiatric procedures. Szasz states, "All involuntary psychiatric interventions should be outlawed" (p. 68), and, "I oppose psychiatric coercion, period" (p. 81). Along with abolishing psychiatric control, another motif that pervades Szasz's book relates to his emphasis on freedom and personal responsibility. There exists a current trend in society to avoid responsibility for troublesome or abnormal behavior, placing the blame on situations (viz., "diseases") and/or other people for these actions. This phenomenon exemplifies the social-psychological concept of self-serving bias (Fincham & Hewstone, 2001). According to Szasz, criminal acts should be treated as such (regardless of psychological condition), and people should accept responsibility for their behavior. This notion closely parallels Rollo May's existentialism philosophy, which is grounded on the assumption that people are free and are responsible for their own choices (Corey, 2001). While Szasz's rationale is well presented, one criticism is his inability to repudiate his critics. Those in opposition to Szasz's beliefs and views, such as Howard Sudak and Karl Menninger, are cited in his book. They advocate re-institutionalization by illustrating the negative impacts of deinstitutionalization. For instance, they blame deinstitutionalization for the large proportion of mentally ill that are homeless and claim that many psychiatric patients have not only "benefited" but also survived due to coercive methods of prescribing medication. While Szasz redundantly reiterates his liberal ideology (i.e., the fact that he disapproves of any type of psychiatric coercion), his rebuttals avoid the content of such criticisms. The only convincing evidence he supplies is a letter written by one of his former adversaries, Karl Menninger, who "acknowledged that perhaps I [Szasz] was right, after all" (p. 201). The major purpose of this book is to enlighten the reader to the baneful process of psychiatric control. Blinded by false perceptions and beliefs of compassion and democracy, society has labeled misbehavior as a medical disorder and has given the state the power to therapeutically coerce. This book is intended for a diverse audience including students and those who participate in the caring professions, particularly clinicians, managers, politicians, and policymakers. Those wanting a sobering look into psychiatric treatment have found the right book.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Important ideas, but what to do with them?,
This review is from: Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted (Hardcover)
Szasz is insightful into the ideas of mental illness and the use of such a term. Does a value judgement such as "mentally ill" or "sane" belong to the field of medicine? Humanity is now noticing the unstable polarity which is the essence to such a judgement, but in this book Szasz discusses the dilemma of what to do when people still exhibit behavior which we want to fix. How does one heal? And isn't healing diseases part of medicine? Labels such as mentally ill are simply excuses to take away another person's free will in order to try to help them. Yes, many times one does help another, but labelling that person as "wrong" or ill is not the right way to remedy a situation. In this book Szasz approaches the ides of autonomy of the individual under a system which claims to be a medical, scientific field, but is a human intitution treating other humans as if they were not humans.
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