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The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement

Book by Thomas Szasz · 3 quotes · Concepts, Homosexuality, Illness

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The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement Quotes

“We shall therefore compare the concept of homosexuality as heresy, prevalent in the days of the witch-hunts, with the concept of homosexuality as mental illness, prevalent today.”

“The disease concept of homosexuality as with the disease concept of all so-called mental illnesses, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, or suicide conceals the fact that homosexuals are a group of medically stigmatized and socially persecuted individuals. ... Their anguished cries of protest are drowned out by the rhetoric of therapy just as the rhetoric of salvation drowned out the [cries] of heretics.”

“So long as men denounce each other as mentally sick (homosexual, addicted, insane, and so forth) so that the madman can always be considered the Other, never the Self mental illness will remain an easily exploitable concept, and Coercive Psychiatry a flourishing institution.”