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Thomas Stephen Szasz

The Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression Paperback – April 1, 1988

by Thomas Szasz (Author)

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This intriguing book undercuts everything you thought you knew about psychotherapy.

Print length

258 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Syracuse University Press
Publication date

April 1, 1988
Dimensions

5.25 x 0.72 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

0815602235
ISBN-13

978-0815602231
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Szasz extends the conviction he first expressed in The Myth of Mental Illness that the concept of mental illness is both erroneous and immoral; ergo, the treatment thereof must also be immoral. Moreover, since there is no such thing as mental illness there cannot possibly be such a thing as psychotherapy. ― British Journal of Psychiatry

As always, Szasz underscores certain truths about abuses of psychiatric practice and makes a number of good points. ― American Journal of Psychiatry

Szasz’s important book will test the self-insight of anyone involved in the therapeutic process. ― Publishers Weekly

To read this book is to be challenged in one’s thinking, excited by new ways of looking at today’s problems, irritated and annoyed, but never to be bored. ― El Paso Times

About the Author

Thomas Szasz is the author of over four-hundred articles and nineteen books; among the most recent are The Therapeutic State: Psychiatry in the Mirror of Current Events and Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences. He was both a practicing psychiatrist and a professor of psychiatry at the Health Science Center, State University of New York, in Syracuse.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Syracuse University Press; Reprint edition (April 1, 1988)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 258 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0815602235
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0815602231
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.72 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,142,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,413 in Rhetoric (Books)
- #2,212 in Medical Psychotherapy TA & NLP
- #2,530 in Popular Psychology Psychotherapy

Customer Reviews:
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5 star		69%
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Top reviews from the United States

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Peter Rogers MD

Interesting perspective on psychotherapy

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

Slow to get started but then becomes entertaining.

Author knows a lot and makes some interesting statements.

However, the book gets repetitive at times.

The book focuses especially on Freud and Jung.

Would have been nice if had talked more about Carl Rogers and David Burns.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Focused One

Wake up call!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 8, 2014

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Thomas brings a point of view that is ....hummmm....shall we say, in your face possibilities of a orchestrated dumb down of the masses. I am in Mental Health an I wonder deep down, If humanity was left alone would it be better off? I think so and his point of view is refreshing. Accept and allow folks to be who they are and are not. By their own choices they will shift/evolve or they will have a short life span. I am in total favor of free will and he gives excellent insight as to why that is vital to our well being.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

Robert S. Gebelein

A Better Writer

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 7, 2002

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Thomas Szasz has become a better writer since he wrote "The Myth of Mental Illness" in 1961. It is clearer in this book that he is just smearing psychotherapy than in the former book, where his smears are better hidden amongst erudite references to twentieth-century philosophy and other confusing stuff. That's why this book, although better written, isn't as brilliant as the former, in my opinion. Psychotherapy has posed an enormous threat to people who don't want their ego-compensations exposed. The power of the backlash against the discoveries of Freud should not be underestimated, and this would account for the enormous market for the works of Thomas Szasz, which are just pure anti-psych propaganda.

30 people found this helpful

Helpful

Joey E. Boyum

buy this book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 25, 2014

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Freud is a fraud. Thomas Szasz's book is a remarkable read. He clearly shows that psychotherapy is a fraud and progressive belief is a religion.

We have free will we need only exercise it and be free.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Adriana

A ground-breaking scholar

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 3, 2012

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Innovative thinker, philosopher. He exposes the myth of the whole field and the importance of experiencing our feelings, not subduing them with mind-numbing, dangerous drugs.

4 people found this helpful

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pliny

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 18, 2018

Verified Purchase

great writer

Helpful

ONE OF THE MAJOR WORKS FOR A PROMINENT "ANTI-PSYCHIATRIST"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 10, 2010

Thomas Szasz (born 1920) is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center. He is a well-known critic of psychiatry, of the social role of medicine in modern society, and is a social libertarian.

Szasz states in the Preface to this 1978 work, "The present work is an effort to complete the demythologizing of psychiatry begun in The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct . As mental illness is the core concept of what psychatrists allegedly study, so psychotherapy is the paradigmatic practice in which they supposedly engage. The task of psychiatric demythologizing would thus remain incomplete without scrutinizing the ideas and interventions that psychiatrists designate by the term psychotherapy."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"Virtually anything anyone might do in the company of another person may now be deemed as psychotherapeutic. If the definer has the proper credentials, and if his audience is sufficiently gullible, any such act will be publicly accepted and accredited as a form of psychotherapy."
"Hence, the very origin of the word psychosurgery is deeply revealing of its character as fake therapy on a metaphorical organ."
"When such an argument is made by Jacobins against clerics, we recognize it as anticlericalism. When it is made by Nazis against Jews, we recognize it as anti-Semitism. But when it is made by Freud against women, we do not recognize it as antifeminism."
"If there is any change in the 'patient,' it is, in the last analysis, brought about by the 'patient' himself. Hence, it is false to say that the psychotherapist treats or is a therapist. It would be more accurate to say that the 'patient' in psychotherapy treats or is a therapist."

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Roman Nies

Widening the horizon- without drugs!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 20, 2010

The author, Professor of psychology is not alone with his critics. Many
more secular psychiatrists and psychologists are exposing their own
profession! How?
Szasz says that there is no such thing as mental sickness existing at
all. He says that reason and psyche are not material. The body can
become sick, because the body is material. But the soul is not material.
Therefore the soul or mind cannot become sick. The further conclusion
is that Psychology is not natural science, because natural science
deals with material. In fact I read about it elsewhere!
The author who is a jewish atheist asserts that psychiatry is a secular
state religion and a social control system which disguises itself under
the claims of scienticity, a pseudoscience that parodies medicine by
using medical sounding words as if heart attack and heartbreak would not
belong to two different categories of phenomenon. Think how dangerous
the world is in which we live! You just need a bad government, or a
doctor who dislikes you and faster than you can look you get a good
treatment in a psychiatric clinic with the prognosis that you won`t see a
flower field again in your life! Are you a fundamentalist? Take a
detour if you see a psychologist! He might catch you!
Szasz has also an explanation for Freud`s endeavour and success. "One of
Freud`s most powerful motives in life was... to inflict vengeance on
Christianity".
He says that psychotherapy is "a fake religion that seeks
to destroy true religion".
How does the author know? E. Fuller Torrey whom the Washington Post
has called the most famous psychiatrist in America said. "Psychiatry
has been willing to sanctify its values with the holy water of medicine
and offer them up as the true faith of `Mental Health'. It is a false
Messiah."
How can anybody be interested in despising psychology if he has no good reason for it? The author must be courageous. So far he has not been declared a lunatic from his enemies. This book is very negative about psychology. If you can take it you should take it. It is not yet confiscated! It makes you widen your horizon- without drugs!

10 people found this helpful

Helpful