Examines the ways that mental illness has been used to control and maintain the status quo, scapegoat certain kinds of people, and label people as "other."

"The Manufacture of Madness . . . is strictly an 8-to-1 jolt, a blockbuster. This is Szasz at his best: driving relentlessly; writing with consummate artistry and a dazzling, indeed overwhelming, scholarship. . . . It is the most important of Szasz’ work to date, and it is a definitive statement, a classic of its kind, both as the underground history of psychiatry and, no doubt, as prophecy."—Hospital and Community Psychiatry

"Quite possibly [Dr. Szasz] has done more than any other man to alert the American public to the potential of an excessively psychiatrized society."—Edwin Schurr, The Atlantic

Description

In this seminal work, Dr. Szasz examines the similarities between the inquisition and institutional psychiatry. His purpose is to show “that the belief in mental illness and the social actions to which it leads have the same moral implications and political consequences as had the belief in witchcraft and the social actions to which it led.”

Table of Contents

PART I: The Inquisition and Institutional Psychiatry
1. Society's Internal Enemies and Protectors
2. The Malefactor Identified
3. The Malefactor Authenticated
4. The Defense of the Dominant Ethic
5 The Witch as Mental Patient
6. The Witch as Healer
7. The Witch as Scapegoat
8. The Myths of Witchcraft and Mental Illness

PART II: The Manufacture of Madness
9. The New Manufacturer-Benjamin Rush, the Father of American Psychiatry
10. The Product Conversion-from Heresy to Illness
11. The New Product-Masturbatory Insanity
12. The Manufacture of Medical Stigma
13. The Model Psychiatric Scapegoat-the Homosexual
14. The Expulsion of Evil
15. The Struggle for Self-Esteem


Epilogue: "The Painted Bird"


Appendix: A Synoptic History of Persecutions for Witchcraft and Mental Illness


References


Bibliography


Index

About the Author

Thomas Szasz is the author of over six hundred articles and twenty-four books. He was a practicing psychiatrist and a professor of psychiatry emeritus at the Health Science Center, State University of New York, in Syracuse.

5.5 x 8.25, 406 pages

April 1997