• Psychiatry

  • The Science of Lies
  • By: Thomas Szasz
  • Narrated by: Tom Weiner
  • Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (138 ratings)

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Psychiatry  By  cover art

Psychiatry

By: Thomas Szasz
Narrated by: Tom Weiner
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Publisher's summary

For more than half a century, Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to a radical critique of psychiatry. His latest work, Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, is a culmination of his life’s work: to portray the integral role of deception in the history and practice of psychiatry.

Szasz argues that the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness stands in the same relationship to the diagnosis and treatment of bodily illness that the forgery of a painting does to the original masterpiece. Art historians and the legal system seek to distinguish forgeries from originals. Those concerned with medicine, on the other hand - physicians, patients, politicians, health-insurance providers, and legal professionals - take the opposite stance when faced with the challenge of distinguishing everyday problems in living from bodily diseases, systematically authenticating non-diseases as diseases. The boundary between disease and non-disease - genuine and imitation, truth and falsehood - thus becomes arbitrary and uncertain.

There is neither glory nor profit in correctly demarcating what counts as medical illness and medical healing from what does not. Individuals and families wishing to protect themselves from medically and politically authenticated charlatanry are left to their own intellectual and moral resources to make critical decisions about human dilemmas miscategorized as “mental diseases” and about medicalized responses misidentified as “psychiatric treatments.”

Delivering his sophisticated analysis in lucid prose and with a sharp wit, Szasz continues to engage and challenge readers of all backgrounds.

Thomas Szasz is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York’s Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York.

©2008 Thomas Szasz (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[Thomas Szasz] is the preeminent critic of psychiatry in the world." (Richard Vatz, Ph.D., Professor of Rhetoric and Communication, Towson University)

What listeners say about Psychiatry

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Over four hours of rant, with lack of rationale

This audiobook caught my attention since I thought it might provide insights into problems with modern psychiatry. In fact, the narration was pretty good, giving it a serious and somewhat determined read.

Unfortunately, I expected too much. The first three or so hours were mostly spent ranting about Sigmund Freud and select other figures from around Freud’s time, where most of the attack was on the character of the people rather than the actual psychological paradigms they devised. No doubt, certain old psychological philosophies were fraught with questionable explanations and diagnostic procedures, but few modern psychologists rely on such tactics today. Basing its primary arguments against such paradigms as Psychoanalysis and such persons as Franz Mesmer, the mesmeriser, this book is clearly attacking some of the weakest, most outdated beliefs in the entire field.

The author’s most repeated argument, or statement, is that “there is no such thing as mental illness”. He basically dismisses psychology and psychiatry as falsehoods that study a “mind” that “does not exist”. His arguments against the existence of mental disorders are weaker than even the most speculative psychoanalytic theories, making him quite a hypocrite. His primary premise is effectively “If there is no apparent lesion or other abnormality visible in the brain under a microscope, then no illness is present”. His reasoning here is like saying “the pages of words in book x look very much like the pages of words in book y, and since book x has no logical fallacies, book y must also be free from any such problems”. Being that his original thesis and books were written in the 50s and 60s, I guess it is no surprise that he is ignorant about many of the functional abnormalities of the brain that are now easier to recognise using fMRI and newer techniques, and about the enlarged cerebral ventricles of persons with advanced schizophrenia. Psychology and cognitive neuroscience are continually advancing, but the author seems to be stuck in the easier-to-refute past and fixated on characters rather than concepts.

The next biggest argument of his can be summed-up as follows: “Since people are capable of imitation and since a number of practitioners have witnessed patients lying about having mental illness, all claims of mental illness, whether from patient or from practitioner, are completely fabricated”. Moreover, no grounds are provided to support this inductive assertion.

I should let you know, I do believe that a fair share of psychiatrists are illegitimate practitioners who make hasty, shadily-supported diagnoses with catch-all labels, and I do believe that psych-drugs are often prescribed or pushed when other options are more appropriate; but the author’s extreme position that mental disorders do not exist, and that anyone claiming they do is a liar, is exceedingly callous. Feel free to buy this audiobook if you want an outdated rant, entrenched with shallow, poorly-supported arguments.

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30 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Outdated Ideas. Not worth investigating in 2021.

While he would have some good points about 50 years ago, modern research into neurology, brain scanning technological improvements & behavioural therapy results (from newer behavioural therapy systems) now invalidate his most basic presumption. While I agree that we cannot yet call every definition in the DSM / ICD 'scientifically proven', trends in behaviour based off of learned thought (neuronal) patterns ARE a real problem in society & can be seen visually in brain scans. They can also be corrected. And while the DSM / ICD have always had issues with embarrassing mistakes (homosexuality, hysteria, etc), as with any REAL science, when new information was found, definitions, theories, & therapeutic approaches all shifted to contend with these new observations. Psychology as a field surely still has long way to go as far as efficacy goes, but it is self-adjusting enough that terming it a 'science' is no longer a true misnomer.

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Brilliant

Makes you think and question the world and the way most see it. A great enjoyable read!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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An Honest Psychiatrist

Obviously people who are invested in the lies, financially or emotionally, will have problems with the truth being told. Szasz was, and still is, a rare treasure.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Not what I expected

The narration was good. It provided a lot of history. It seemed very opinionated.

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great companion to The Myth of Mental Illness

a great companion read to The Myth of Mental Illness. the metaphor of art forgery to explain diagnostic forgery is great. maybe Szasz what primed to see the flaws in the metaphor of mental illness because he is so good at using effective metaphors.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

psychiatry spoiled by incompetent narrator

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The content is a well known sumamry of Szasz's ideas and concepts. Mental illness as metaphor and the damage done to libertarian ideals by the controll of the psyhciatric elite. The new religion of the state.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Psychiatry?

His history of the development of mad doctoring.

Would you be willing to try another one of Tom Weiner’s performances?

No - very disappointing. Trying to fit Szasz's own voice in would make more sense. His phrasing lends far more credibility to his ideas. Weiner talks too fast and with almost no sense of the power of the story he is telling - very disappointed.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No - not able to made into a movie

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

The lier blaming others for lies.

Astonishing the see a book so full of lies just to blame other as liers.
Freud never took psychoanalysis as a natural science.
I am very disappointed with this book that was written by a man who gave so much to psychiatry in his other works

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Outdated

Quotes a ton of dead people who have no idea how the field of medicine has transformed. With MRIs and other imaging technology, we now understand how the brain structures and functions differ in people with mental disorders. Don't waist your time with this philosophizing.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

I LEARNED ALOT I DIDNT KNOW AT FIRST.

Over his theory was explained good but did seem to have some bias in it but your sure to learn of what those against psychiatry feel for sure.

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