This three-minute excerpt is posted here by permission of the producers, Andrew Lyman-Clarke, Editor/Distribution Associate, Witness Films, 802-578-3625. The film was directed and the interview was done by Philip Singer, Ph.D. See http://www.witnessfilms.com/documentary. If you would like to purchase the hour-long documentary interview with Professor Szasz, go to http://www.witnessfilms.com/documentary. It is definitely worth purchasing the hour-long film. These film makers are first rate.

Please note: Neither Thomas S. Szasz, MD, nor Jeffrey A. Schaler, Ph.D., are "anti-psychiatrists." We both believe in psychiatry between consenting adults. We are opposed to institutional psychiatry and coercion. We are not opposed to contractual or consenual psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, or counseling, what have you, as long as the designated client is able to fire his or her therapist at any time. Obviously we do not consider drugs as medicine for behavior. If people want to take drugs to control the way they think, feel, behave and perceive, by all means they should be free to do so. See Szasz's important work: Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared , published by Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, 2009. See the review by Dr. Ron Roberts in The Freeman , September 22, 2010.

I produced and created this site as a public education service. I make no money on this site. Anyone and everyone is free to use material on this site, however, we do require that if you use material, please acknowledge the source, that is www.szasz.com , and include the following statement with any photograph or text that you want to use:

This is the only official Szasz site. It was created, constructed, and produced by Jeffrey A. Schaler, Ph.D. with the permission and guidance over the course of many years from his close friend and colleague, Professor Thomas S. Szasz. This site was given to Dr. Schaler by Dr. Szasz. All rights reserved.

This is szasz.com!

If you talk to God, you are praying;

If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.

--Thomas S. Szasz, The Second Sin, Anchor/Doubleday, Garden City, NY. 1973, p. 113.

It takes an iconoclast with temerity and acumen to illuminate how unexamined myths and metaphors insidiously determine prevailing norms -- norms considered unassailable and sacrosanct by the prevailing medical/legal system. For decades, Thomas Szasz has publicly challenged the excesses that obscure reason. The Medicalization of Everyday Life offers a no-nonsense perspective on prevailing dogma. It is only through clear vision that intelligent choices can be made. Required reading for all professionals in health care fields, and all those who are subject to their unwitting prejudices.

--Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D., Director, The Milton Erickson Foundation

Praise from George Annas for Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry, by Thomas Szasz, published by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswich,

New Jersey, 2007:

A powerful and fittingly impassioned indictment of psychiatrists who use coercion to "treat" patients by the psychiatrist 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."



George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H.

Edward Utley Professor and Chair

Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights

Boston University School of Public Health

Author of The Rights of Patients

Grand Rounds, Department of Psychiatry, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York

It was a great honor for me to be invited by Professor Chaitanya Haldipur, and former chair of the psychiatry department at Upstate Medical University Professor Mantosh Dewan, to give the first Grand Rounds lecture in honor of Tom on Thursday, February 13, 2014, at 12:30pm, at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. The title of my talk was: Games Psychiatrists Play .

Chaitanya Haldipur, long a close friend of Tom's and I am honored to say a friend of mine, took me out for a wonderful Italian dinner the night before my lecture, and Mantosh Dewan, former chair of the Dept of Psychiatry for many years, introduced me at the start of my talk. I must say it was one of the nicest introductions I have ever received. (It sure was a long way from how I was treated after teaching for 22 years at American University's Department of Justice, Law and Society, in the School of Public Affairs!)

Mantosh gave an equally beautiful appreciation of Tom at the start of our symposium in honor of Tom's eightieth birthday in Weiskotten Hall, years ago. When it comes to appreciation and introductions, no one speaks more eloquently and more sincerely than Mantosh. What a wonderful person.

It was a full house on Thursday, February 13, 2014, when I spoke after lunch at 12:30pm. You are welcome to read the handout I gave to those who attended my talk, again, an invited lecture for Grand Rounds, "kicking off the year of celebrating their beloved Thomas Szasz" in a series of forthcoming Grand Rounds.

I enjoyed seeing many of the friends I made at the celebration and symposium Nelson Borelli, MD, of Northwestern University Medical School, and I put together in honor of Tom's eightieth birthday. See the 80th birthday program and symposium in Tom's honor here.

Another important Grand Rounds gathering was scheduled for August 8, 2014. "Celebration of the Life and Work of Thomas Szasz" Save-The-Date, Pre-registration is Required, Friday, August 8, 2014, Everson Museum, in Syracuse, 8am to 3pm - reception to follow. Contact Cassandra Read (readc@upstate.edu) if you want to attend. Travel to Syracuse to attend this historic gathering. Register NOW! Location is Hosmer Auditorium of the Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New York. 8:00am to 3:00pm. Reception to follow from 3:00pm to 5:00pm. For further information, please contact Linette Thorp at (315) 464-3104, or, by email at thorpl@upstate.edu. This event is free, but pre-registration is required. Registration deadline is August 6, 2014. See the program here.

Here is an outstanding essay originally published in Current Psychology a peer-reviewed international quarterly journal, entitled "On Being Sane in an Insane Place: The Rosenhan Experiment in the Laboratory of Plautus' Epidamnus," December 2013, Volume 32, Number 4, pp. 348-365, by Professor Michael Scott Fontaine, Department of Classics, Cornell University. For more about Current Psychology see the greeting by the new Editor-in-Chief Professor Richard Ferraro. Readers here and elsewhere may be interested in reading the special issue I published and co-edited with my late colleague University Professor Rita J. Simon entitled entitled "Anti-Semitism the World Over in the 21st Century,"Current Psychology DOI 10.1007/s12144-007-9012-8. Michael was a friend of Tom's, and Michael and I quickly became friends when he contacted me out of the blue and showed me the essay he had written. I was bowled over, as was Professor Emeritus Chaitanya Haldipur when I sent it to him for review. Michael is a terrific writer. For a Professor of Classics at Cornell to grasp the significance and relevance of Rosenhan and Tom's work is phenomenal. I was then working on the last issue of Current Psychology as Editor-in-Chief the past eight years. I imnmediately included it, after it was instantly accepted by two other colleagues of mine in the peer-reviewed process, (I finished my eight year tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Current Psychology effective December 31, 2013.) Note: Professor Michael S. Fontaine is the featured speaker for "Grand Rounds," sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry at Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York, on September 11, 2014 from 12:30-2:00 pm. Dr. Fontaine will discuss this article, and share some of his experiences with Thomas Szasz. Szasz read Michael's article before it was edited and published by myself. Tom praised Michael for what he had written. This is a terrific essay, written by an outstanding Professor of Classics at Cornell. I STRONGLY encourage you to attend what is sure to be an enlightening lecture. Michael took me out for a memorable lunch at the Moosewood Restaurant, where we also indulged in a couple of equally strong margaritas, in mid-afternoon . . . ! Report on The Celebration of the Life and Work of Thomas Szasz sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry at Upstate Medical University August 8, 2014 by Michael S. Fontaine.

Other Articles "Idleness and Lawlessness in the Therapeutic State," by Thomas Szasz, SOCIETYMay/June, feature article, pp. 30-35



"Debunking Antipsychiatry: Laing, Law, and Largactil," by Thomas Szasz. Current Psychology, volume 27, number 2, June 2008, pp. 79-101



Here is an excellent essay I used in college classes for many years. Interestingly. those on the political left opposed to capital punishment, always asserted that capital punishment was "too easy" for the guilty defendant. They consistently wanted defendants found guilty of murder to suffer throughout out the course of their lifetimes, via life imprisonment. They opposed the death penalty because they though the guilty defendant was not suffering enough. To my way of thinking, this reveals the sadistic nature of their their rationale. Too many faculty at American University wanted sadistic murderers to suffer over the course of their lifetime, and not have their suffering ended quickly via a death penalty.



Not all libertarians agree with Szasz about the myth of mental illness . . . "Is mental illness a myth?" by Marty L. Zupan, reason, volume 5/number 3, August 1973



The Manufacture of Madness by Thomas Szasz, translated completely in Russian (valuable!)



Obituary of Thomas Szasz in the British Medical Journal, October 12, 2012

Correspondence between Drs. Charles Aring and Thomas Szasz circa 1970s, 1980s

"The psychiatric protection order for the 'battered mental patient'," by Thomas Szasz, British Medical JournalBMJ 2003;327:1449

See Fifty Years After The Myth of Mental Illness.

And this is the preface for the new edition of The Myth of Mental Illness. February 23, 2010. "The myth of mental illness: 50 years later," Psychiatric Bulletin, SPECIAL ARTICLES. (Note: This paper was delivered as a plenary address at the International Congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Edinburgh, 24 June 2010.

Also published in The Psychiatrist Online, May 2011, 35:179-182, doi:10.1192/pb.bp.110.031310

"Second Commentary on 'Aristotle's Function Argument,'" by Thomas Szasz, in Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, Vol. 7, No. 1/March 2000, pp. 3-16

"'Freedom is more important than health': Thomas Szasz and the problem of paternalism," Special Paper by Joanna Moncrieff, rebuttal entitled "The legacy -- or not -- of Dr Thomas Szasz (1920-2012)," by Trevor Turner. International Psychiatry, 2014, 11, pp. 46-49.

"Thomas Szasz obituary," by Anthony Stadlen, The Guardian, October 4, 2012

Longer obituary for Thomas Szasz by Anthony Stadlen



"Psichiatria/Informazione, Associazione Per La Lotta Contro Le Malattie Mentali, III 2012, Numero 44" Requiem Per Thomas Szasz, Scritto da Tristano Jonathan Ajmone

"What is Psychiatry?" The American Journal of Psychiatry, Editorial, 154:5, May 1997

The Psychiatrist in Court: People of the State of California v. Darlin June Cromer (1980) (Contains important transcript of Szasz testimony)

Thomas Szasz, MD: Philosopher, Psychiatrist, Libertarian," By Eric v.d. Luft, Ph.D., M.L.S., Curator of Historical Collections, Health Sciences Library, Alumni Journal, Summer, 2001, pp. 9 - 12.

The historical account of the attempt to fire Szasz from the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, by the then Director of the New York Department of Mental Hygiene, Paul Hoch, MD., was written by Jeffrey A. Schaler, under the strict supervision of Professor Thomas Szasz. Szasz Under Fire: The Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics, Edited by Jeffrey A. Schaler, Open Court Publishing, Chicago, 2004



This book also contains the only written autobiography by Thomas Szasz. Note that when this book was published, The New England Journal of Medicine

AND the Journal of the American Medical Association BOTH published reviews of the book simultaneously. (See more reviews here.) Praise also came from George Annas for Szasz Under Fire: The Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics, edited by Jeffrey A. Schaler, published by Open Court Publishers, Chicago, 2004: "Anyone who has ever had qualms about the state giving psychiatrists the power to use drugs and civil commitment to control its citizens on the basis of 'mental illness' will be deeply rewarded by this stellar intellectual performance by Szasz, who not only holds his liberty-centered ground, but often gains more in direct and sometimes brutally frank responses to his critics and would-be reshapers of his life's work."