Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Thomas Szasz has died

The Telegraph carries an excellent obituary of this great man. Thomas Szasz was a Professor of Psychiatry who did not 'believe in' mental illness. Many of his books are about what he described as "the myth of mental illness" and about the great harm that is done by a belief in mental illness (or the pretence of believing in it). I read most of his books in the 80's and I found them compelling reading. I regard him as the foremost writer on psychiatry and I have written about him before. (See HERE.) His books display an incisive intelligence and a mordant wit, as he sought to protect the victims of psychiatric labelling from the harm that such labels do in the hands of medically-qualified knaves and fools supported by a misbegotten legal system.

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