Szasz, Thomas (1920– )

Hungarian-born US psychiatrist. In his book The Myth of Mental Illness (1961), he argued that the concept of mental illness was false. Believing that individuals should take responsibility for their own actions, he supported the policy of moving mental patients out of hospital and into the community.

Szasz was born in Budapest but emigrated to the USA 1938. He was professor of psychiatry at SUNY Health Science Center, Syracuse, New York, 1956–90, and it was there he developed his anti-psychiatry philosophy. He saw psychiatrists as concerned less with treating mental illness than with defining normal behaviour, acting as social police. His many books include Law, Liberty and Psychiatry 1963, Ideology and Insanity 1970, Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry 1976, The Myth of Psychotherapy 1978, Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences 1987, and Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted 1994.