Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted

by Thomas Szasz

Book Overview

Cruel Compassion is the capstone of Thomas Szasz's critique of psychiatric practices. Reexamining psychiatric interventions from a cultural-historical and political-economic perspective, Szasz... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 047101012X
• ISBN13: 9780471010128
• Release Date: March 1994
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Cruel Compassion: Szasz's Oxymoron Underlying Psychiatric Control

Capitalism is the hallmark of the American economy. Americans embrace the notion of producing and distributing goods and services in a free market, which undergoes minimal government regulation. This type of economic trade works for and satisfies most people in a democratic society, particularly those with adequate financial stability. For some unfortunate individuals, however, the market is not entirely "free," and government regulation is all but minimal. These individuals are forced to be consumers of government-provided goods and services against their will. Although those found guilty of criminal acts are deprived of liberty, denied certain legal rights, and subjected to government coercion, these hapless individuals are not criminals. In most instances, these individuals have neither performed criminal acts, posed as threats to anyone or anything, nor been accused of any wrongdoing per se. The only accusation made against these individuals is that they are "insane;" furthermore, coercing these individuals to adhere to government regulation is justifiable in a court of law. American society and economy has a deleterious system of subjecting insane, or "mentally ill," individuals to psychiatric control. This theme pervades Thomas Szasz's book, Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of America's Unwanted. According to Szasz, there exists an age-old process of storing and coercing society's unwanted individuals (viz., indigents, debtors, epileptics, children, homeless individuals, and the mentally ill). The beginning of this process can be traced back to the early 17th-century English Poor Laws, which were enacted to punish economically unproductive indigents. Between then and now, debtors, or insolvents, were contractually bound to serve time in debtor's prisons; epileptics were medicated (i.e., given neuroleptic, or antipsychotic, drugs), sterilized, and stored in colonies; troublesome children were given arbitrary psychiatric diagnoses and sentenced to psychiatric hospitals, or "madhouses;" and homeless individuals were housed in economically lucrative, government-provided domiciles. As for the mentally ill, they were originally placed in asylums and madhouses (i.e., were institutionalized) under the coercion of a psychiatrist, and as a result of an anti-psychiatric movement and Szasz himself, they are currently coerced into deinstitutionalization and ingestion of psychiatric mediation. While many of these acts may appear to be compassionate and altruistic methods performed by self-righteous mental health professionals in order to help or correct the "less fortunate," Szasz asserts that this facade is far from the truth. These motives underlying these acts are often economic. For example, the frequency of psychiatric diagnoses in America is highly influenced and regulated by health insurance companies and government-funded programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. Another popular motive for psychiatric institutionalization deri

Independent Thought Disorder

The idea that those in our society whose beliefs differ from the norm must be drugged and/or imprisoned in the name of compassion is so widely accepted that it is rarely challenged. If Jesus Christ were alive today, he would have been arrested for disorderly conduct at the temple, given a court ordered psychiatric evaluation, diagnosed with irritable mania/Bi-Polar disorder and drugged into a near comatose stupor until he renounced his beliefs and conformed to the beliefs of those in power (pharisees.) The idea that individuals who have committed no crime can be stripped of their civil rights on the word of a single medical opinion is apalling considering that some patients have received as many as 50 different psychiatric diagnosis, many contradictary. Institutionalization and forced medication with dangerous psychoactive drugs constitutes assault and has lead to death and disability. It is a means of social control. It is often little more than chemical assault by people in positions of power against people without power. Often abused women were locked in a Mental Hospital for life on the word of an abusive husband or resentful/dishonest family member. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was not recognized as a disorder until the 1970's. Prior to that it was often mistaken for Paranoid Schizophrenia or Psychosis and treated with insulin/electro shock or lobotomy rather than traditional psychotherapy turning Post Traumatic Stress survivors into the walking dead. And all this is in the name of compassion. Certainly this is cruel and abusive yet it continues today. This book exposes what modern psychiatry wants to conceal: the brutal, dehumanizing power of psychiatry as a means of social control.

masterpiece work...

ALL OF SZASZ WORK IS REALLY WUNDERBAR... I GOT THE CHANCE TO READ SOME OF THESE BOOKS THEY ALL ARE SOMETHING.THESE BOOKS OPEN YOUR MIND... TO REALITY THEY ARE DOING WITH THESKINNER BOX AND ELSE.THEY ARE ALL FALSE TEACHERS,WE DO NOT HAVE TOBE ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL.THE THING THAT I DO NOT UNDERSTAND UNDERSTANDING, THAT THEY BELIEVE THEY HAVE THE ONLY TRUE,IF WE TALK WITH OTHER POSSIBILITIES WE ARE WRONGDOING,SATAN,DEVIL, THAT IS JUST SEMANTICS THAT THEY USE TO BREAK YOUR INNERSELF TO THESE F.... NERROWMINDED SOULLESS ONES,BUT THAT IS JUST A DEEP TRANCE ONE DAY TIME TO WAKEUP.