"If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia" - The Second Sin, 1973 Well, today Dr. Thomas Szasz talks to us, and we're fortunate. My honored guest is a genuine maverick in the mental health field, a man who has "done more than anyone else to challenge psychiatry to abandon the destructive use of force and replace it with consent, trust, and adherence to the Hippocratic injunction to do no harm." (G. Annas from Szasz website)
Thomas Szasz was born in Hungary in 1920, received his M.D. from the University of Cincinnati in 1944, and trained at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Upstate Medical University, State University of New York, Syracuse, distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association. His 33 books, hours of lecture and innumerable articles share a similar message: biological disease and (mis)behavior aren't the same, yet psychiatry mistakenly links the two.
Needless to say, Szasz is a psychiatrist at variance with his profession. In 1961 he penned the classic The Myth of Mental Illness where he refuted the idea that mental disorders were on par with physical illness and could therefore be treated with medication. In his view, mental illness does not constitute actual disease, but rather "problems in living." He wrote and spoke vehemently against the dominant paradigm, as he continues to this day.
Szasz is labeled an anti-psychiatrist, but this misnomer will be clarified in his forthcoming book Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared, which Szasz described to me as: "My quixotic attempt to dissociate myself from this stigmatizing term and category." Szasz is not an anti-psychiatrist; he supports psychiatry if it is contractual and non-coercive.
I'm thrilled to include Dr. Szasz's iconoclastic, dissenting opinions to my project. In true form, he agreed to submit his answers with the following caveat:
My view is that there is no mental illness and hence also no "therapy/psychotherapy." Therapy, then, is a particular kind of human relationship (arrangement, contract), aimed at helping people cope with their "problems in living." This makes it necessary to reframe some of the questions you pose.
I wouldn't have it any other way. When Dr. Szasz has taken the time to subvert the Seven Questions, I know I must be on to something. Enjoy these responses from a living legend in the field of mental health.
Seven Questions for Thomas Szasz:
1. How would you respond to a new client who asks: "What should I talk about?"
I have retired from nearly fifty years of private practice, which was limited to adult, voluntary clients, and was based on the following principles:
□ There is no such thing as mental illness, hence also no such thing as psychotherapy.
□ "Psychotherapy" is a private, confidential conversation that has nothing to do with illness, medicine, or healing.
□ The therapist must not directly participate in the client's "real life": he must not use his power to coerce or excuse the client or intervene in the client's life for any reason.
□ The therapist must keep his client's communications absolutely confidential and the client must pay the therapist for the service he receives.
