Psychiatry
The Science of Lies
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Psychiatry
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Narrated by:
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Tom Weiner
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By:
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Thomas Szasz
About this listen
For more than half a century, Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to a radical critique of psychiatry. His latest work, Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, is a culmination of his life’s work: to portray the integral role of deception in the history and practice of psychiatry.
Szasz argues that the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness stands in the same relationship to the diagnosis and treatment of bodily illness that the forgery of a painting does to the original masterpiece. Art historians and the legal system seek to distinguish forgeries from originals. Those concerned with medicine, on the other hand - physicians, patients, politicians, health-insurance providers, and legal professionals - take the opposite stance when faced with the challenge of distinguishing everyday problems in living from bodily diseases, systematically authenticating non-diseases as diseases. The boundary between disease and non-disease - genuine and imitation, truth and falsehood - thus becomes arbitrary and uncertain.
There is neither glory nor profit in correctly demarcating what counts as medical illness and medical healing from what does not. Individuals and families wishing to protect themselves from medically and politically authenticated charlatanry are left to their own intellectual and moral resources to make critical decisions about human dilemmas miscategorized as “mental diseases” and about medicalized responses misidentified as “psychiatric treatments.”
Delivering his sophisticated analysis in lucid prose and with a sharp wit, Szasz continues to engage and challenge readers of all backgrounds.
Thomas Szasz is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York’s Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York.
©2008 Thomas Szasz (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
What listeners say about Psychiatry
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Gillian
- 07-02-22
Read with objective curiousity
If you are someone who struggles with mental health, has been diagnosed with 'mental illness' or second guesses their own behaviour this book is not for you. It is potentially damaging to any layperson reading it from a perspective of self discovery. It is not written from a place of healing, compassion, human evolution or growth. So please don't even start this book expecting any relief, answers or guidance.
If you approach this book, aware of what it is about, it is actually quite interesting. Although I disagree with most of it I did enjoy listening to it and think it is worth a listen for all mental health practitioners and students in training. Taken with a large pinch of salt it is an entertaining listen, performed well.
This book does highlight the problematic power dynamic of those who diagnose mental health conditions and the powerlessness of those whose behaviour is disliked and unwelcomed by society. For me the book goes too far and I do not agree with the views of Szasz. However there are some good points that as a stand alone argument have some merit and it is refreshing to have Freud written about in a human way, flaws and all.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Nikkesha
- 23-11-23
Edited review
Ok so I added a couple of more stars as I realised my biases were effecting the way I listened.
Now although I still don’t agree the mental illness is not real I DO understand what he is saying and a lot of what he says is actually true.
I don’t know, this one takes some serious analytical skill.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Alan Michael Forrester
- 12-04-13
A good summary of Szasz's criticism of psychiatry
In "Psychiatry: The Science of Lies", Thomas Szasz argues that psychiatry is not about mental illness: it is about lies. Mental illnesses are in general not specified in terms of structural or chemical changes in the human body. Rather they are specified in terms of behaviour. So there are no objective tests for mental illness before or after a person dies. They are literally just labels for behaviour that people dislike. The point of such a label is to deny the moral agency of the person diagnosed with that label. Sometimes a mental patient seeks out this status to get drugs they want or to avoid prison after committing a crime. Sometimes somebody else seeks to impose the label on the mental patient because the mental patient's behaviour is deemed inconvenient. So psychiatry is about people lying to one another, and to themselves. The book is well written and is narrated well by Tom Weiner.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- The Introcentric
- 07-03-23
A perspective that may raise eyebrows
While I am a firm believer that there is mental illness and that it affects the physiological health as well, more and more evident by research, the author has a point. That point is that psychiatry has too much power and that personal responsibility is played down and deception is almost the norm in some careers and positions, politics being my obvious prime example.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Liz McKinnell
- 04-10-21
Wrong, but interestingly wrong
Good narration.
Weiner overreaches in using the slippery and culturally influenced nature of mental diagnosis to deny mental illness altogether.
Part of the problem rests on his huge overconfidence about the scientific objectivity of diagnosis of physical illnesses, and his inability to make a clear distinction between the illness as it affects the patient, and its underlying cause.
Also rather sensationalist in the insistence that all who disagree with him are frauds and liars.
I should probably point out for any trans and non binary listeners that there’s also a random bit of unsubstantiated transphobia in there, which is only tenuously related to anything else.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Matt
- 01-08-21
Nonsense factory don’t waste your time
Unbalanced attack on an established medical group. Utter rubbish.
Don’t waste your time on this
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- HumanBeing
- 20-11-21
Abysmal
Abysmal waste of time!
Cannot see any benefit from reading this book.
Not sure what the author was trying to achieve, but they certainly did not succeed.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- dylan roberts
- 18-01-22
he must have been drunk to have written this
A single handed attempt to debunk mental illness, ill conceived and totally clueless. I only read this to confirm how some people can confirm something as fact because others have said so. Why quote ancient physicians when modern day science can scatter the authors argument to oblivion
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Kimi
- 10-01-22
Insulting beyond belief…
What a ridiculous excuse of a book! How insulting to those who suffer with their mental health. I had to cease listening after about 30 minutes.
If I could give zero stars, I would.
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1 person found this helpful