Ideology and Insanity
Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man

Publisher:  Anchor Books, New York, USA
Year Published:  1970
Pages:  265pp   ISBN:  0-385-02033-3
Resource Type:  Book

In the prennial conflict that is life, control of the weak by the strong is justified by a rhetoric appropriate to the prevailing ideology. In the 20th century, the credo is Mental Health, and in its name those who deviate from accepted social norms are often victimized and dehumanized. Szasz shows how psychiatry too often servers as a convenient way of avoiding confrontations with moral conflicts and social problems.

Abstract: 
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Table of Contents

PREFACE

1. INTODUCTION

2. THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS

3. THE MENTAL HEALTY ETHIC

4. THE RHETORIC OF REJECTION

5. MENTAL HEALTH AS IDEOLOGY

6. WHAT PSYCHIATRY CAN AND CANNOT DO

7. BOOTLEGGING HUMANISTIC VALUES THROUGH PSYCHIATRY

8.THE INSANITY PLEA AND THE INSANITY VERDICT

9. INVOLUNTARY MENTAL HOSPITALIZATIONS: A Crime Against Humanity

10. MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN THE SCHOOL

11. PSYCHIATRY, THE STATE, AND THE UNIVERSITY: The Problem of the Professional Identity of Academic Psychiatry

12. PSYCHIATRIC CLASSIFICATION AS A STRATEGY OF PERSONAL CONSTRAINT

13. WHITHER PSYCHIATRY?

INDEX