The Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing As Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press (March 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815602235
• ISBN-13: 978-0815602231
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #478,995 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Much-Needed Debunking of Psychotherapy, July 24, 2003

By A Customer

Dr. Szasz provides a refreshing break from the psychobabble that dominates so much public discourse. Psychology and psychiatry are not nearly as scientific as they pretend to be. There is a world of difference between the "mental health" field and the non-psychiatric branches of medical science.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A PIVITIOL STUDY, May 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric and Repression (Paperback)

This book and this book in particular were pivitol in my true understanding of "mental illness". I just wish more doctors would read this book, and have half the guts szasz has when it comes to defending the victims of this modern witch hunt we seem to accept all to willingly as part of modern life.

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative Unveiling of the Real Essence of Psychotherapy, October 18, 2009

By	B. Davidson "Thinking Theocentric Guy" (Japan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a brilliant book about the nature and roots of psychotherapy. It's too bad that more don't seem to read it. Szasz traces the roots of psychotherapy all the way back to the ancient Greeks and biblical times, showing that Socrates as well as other rhetoricians and religious leaders saw themselves as people who "cured souls" through words guiding people into issues of morality and virtue. Since it consists only in conversation, psychotherapy is thus seen to be a rhetorical act, not a medical treatment. Furthermore, Freud and Jung both made it very clear on various occasions that psychotherapy also belongs in the realm of religion, not science, though both tried to hitch it to the rising star of scientific respectability when it suited them. Finally, psychotherapy and psychiatric treatment rely very much on repression in the sense that they take away the patient's freedom and impose on him the expectations and beliefs of others about his behavior in a very arbitrary way. Szasz sees the most dangerous scenario as a world in which governments have the power to decide what treatments people should be permitted or ought to be forced to receive. He wrote this in 1978, and in some ways it seems prophetic as Americans debate the dangers of a national health-care system, which surely will include the repressive type of psychotherapy that Szasz warns us about. He shows the power of labeling and naming that psychotherapy already commonly exercises in condemning or else excusing various behaviors according to the fashions of current psychotherapeutic theory. For a liberating new look at a field whose concepts have brainwashed a great many, read this provocative and insightful book!