People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. Thomas Szasz More Quotes by Thomas Szasz More Quotes From Thomas Szasz The disease concept of homosexuality as with the disease concept of all so-called mental illnesses, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, or suicide conceals the fact that homosexuals are a group of medically stigmatized and socially persecuted individuals. ... Their anguished cries of protest are drowned out by the rhetoric of therapy just as the rhetoric of salvation drowned out the [cries] of heretics. Thomas Szasz addiction drug suicide A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power. Thomas Szasz education teacher retirement As the dominant social ethic changed from a religious to a secular one, the problem of heresy disappeared, and the problem of madness arose and became of great social significance. In the next chapter I shall examine the creation of social deviants, and shall show that as formerly priests had manufactured heretics, so physicians, as the new guardians of social conduct and morality, began to manufacture madmen. Thomas Szasz physicians next religious The poor need jobs and money, not psychoanalysis. The uneducated need knowledge and skills, not psychoanalysis. Thomas Szasz skills jobs needs People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend upon them. Since they cannot do that, people choose to make the powerful virtuous, glorifying in becoming victimized by them. Thomas Szasz powerful dream people All drugs of any interest to any moderately intelligent person in America are now illegal. Thomas Szasz intelligent humor america By pretending that convention is Nature, that disobeying a personal prohibition is a medical illness, they establish themselves as agents of social control and at the same time disguise their punitive interventions in the semantic and social trappings of medical practice. Thomas Szasz agents medical practice Since this is the age of science, not religion, psychiatrists are our rabbis, heroin is our pork, and the addict is the unclean person. Thomas Szasz heroin pork age Men are rewarded or punished not for what they do but for how their acts are defined. That is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves. Thomas Szasz why-me punishment men Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less. Thomas Szasz conceited successful love Delusion: belief said to be false by someone who does not share it. Thomas Szasz belief doe believe If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; if God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic. Thomas Szasz schizophrenia madness god Had the white settlers in North America called the natives 'Americans' instead of 'Indians', the early Americans could not have said that the 'only good Indian is a dead Indian' and could not have deprived them so easily of their lands and lands and lives. Robbing people of their proper names is often the first step in robbing them of their property, liberty, and life. Thomas Szasz land names white If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. Thomas Szasz mad doe believe The wise treat self-respect as non-negotiable, and will not trade it for health or wealth or anything else. Thomas Szasz wealth self wise No further evidence is needed to show that 'mental illness' is not the name of a biological condition whose nature awaits to be elucidated, but is the name of a concept whose purpose is to obscure the obvious. Thomas Szasz nature purpose names Whenever masses of people, especially educated people, know something - and when what they know is something they greatly fear because they believe it affects virtually everything they do or want to do - then most likely we stand in the presence of a vast falsehood. Thomas Szasz want believe people It taught me, at an early age, that being wrong can be dangerous, but being right, when society regards the majority’s falsehood as truth, could be fatal. Thomas Szasz taught majority age There is no such thing as mental illness, hence also no such thing as psychotherapy. Thomas Szasz psychotherapy mental-illness illness Traditionally, sex has been a very private, secretive activity. Herein perhaps lies its powerful force for uniting people in a strong bond. As we make sex less secretive, we may rob it of its power to hold men and women together. Thomas Szasz powerful strong sex
