LAW, LIBERTY AND PSYCHIATRY

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aut, trigger-happy volume; a little brash, but essentially refreshing. attacks the current psychoanalytic-criminologic proposition that crime is either form of mental illness or the result of it. Further, Dr. Szasz worries over the tendency today not that every man should assume more responsibility but that he should delegate that responsibility to psychiatrists. Thus he contends health values have usurped the place of moral values and we are no longer free to choose ternative courses of action, a state of affairs leading to an Orwellian Big Brother era both in the realm of social relations and of political policy-making. According to Dr. Szasz, the so-called mentally ill are not a ""defined class"", since psychiatric formulations and/or testimony always involve conflicting opinions; nor an the mental hospitals help them, the ""treatment"" there being a form of therapeutic imprisonment, a denial of civil liberties and a symptom of increasing collectivization. Among his bombshell proposals: the abolishment of all involuntary ental institutions. Case-studies range from Mad Ludwig of Bavaria to Mad Ezra of St. Elizabeth's, along with full-scale debate on legal complexities and conspiracies.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1963

Categories: NONFICTION