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Thomas Szasz

Thomas Szasz Quotes

Psychiatrist

Thomas Szasz, born on April 15, 1920 in Hungary, was a renowned American psychiatrist, writer, and philosopher. He is known for his critical views on psychiatry and liberalism, particularly his skepticism about the nature of mental illness and his emphasis on individual freedom.

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Famous Thomas Szasz Quotes

“There is a fundamental similarity between the persecution of individuals who engage in consenting homosexual activity in private, or who ingest, inject, or smoke various substances that alter their feelings and thoughts - and the traditional persecution of men for their religion... What all of these persecutions have in common is that the victims are harassed by the majority not because they engage in overtly aggressive or destructive acts... but because their conduct or appearance offends a group intolerant to and threatened by human differences.”

“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.”

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

“The two greatest enemies of the individual in the modern world are communism and psychiatry. Each wages a relentless war against that which makes a person an individual: communism against the ownership of property, psychiatry against the ownership of the self (mind and body). Communists criminalize the autonomous use of capital and labor, and harshly punish those who "traffic" in the black market, especially in foreign currencies. Psychiatrists criminalize the autonomous use of the self, and harshly punish those who "traffic" in self-abuse, especially in self-medication and self-destruction.”

Source: The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary

“Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.”

Men Mind Individual Responsibility Moral Society Morality Anger Guilt Democratic Meaningful Punishment Compromise Distinction Collectives Meaningless Individual Responsibility

Book:The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary

Source: The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary

“Individual psychotherapy - that is, engaging a distressed fellow human in a disciplined conversation and human relationship - requires that the therapist have the proper temperament and philosophy of life for such work. By that I mean that the therapist must be patient, modest, and a perceptive listener, rather than a talker and advice-giver.”

“Addiction, obesity, starvation (anorexia nervosa) are political problems, not psychiatric: each condense and expresses a contest between the individual and some other person or persons in his environment over the control of the individual's body.”

Persons Problem Body Political Individual Environment Addiction Contests Starvation Obesity Anorexia Psychiatric

Author:Thomas Szasz

“We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility”

Individual Responsibility Guilt Meaningful Collectives Meaningless Individual Responsibility

Book:Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary

Source: Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary