The Rise of Szasz's Arguments
Szasz first presented his attack on "mental illness" as a legal term in 1958 in the Columbia Law Review. In his article he argued that mental illness was no more a fact bearing on a suspect's guilt than is possession by the devil.
In 1961 Szasz gave testimony before a United States Senate committee in which he argued that the use of mental hospitals to incarcerate people defined as insane violated the general assumptions of patient-and-doctor relationships and turned the doctor into a warden and a keeper of a prison.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Szasz
Famous quotes containing the words rise, szasz and/or arguments:
“May not the complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs?”
—Charles Dickens (18121870)
“Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“When I am convinced of any principle, it is only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.”
—David Hume (17111776)