-
The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays
- Narrated by: Gary D. MacFadden
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Categories: Health & Wellness, Medicine & Health Care Industry
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Audible Premium Plus
$14.95 a month
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Myth of Psychotherapy
- Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression
- By: Thomas Szasz
- Narrated by: Robin Lawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Until recent years, “bad” and “immoral” were the terms used to describe people who are now referred to as “sick” and “in need of treatment.” Moral and religious perspective has been replaced by medical and therapeutic rhetoric. It is little wonder why the world is plagued by legions of rapists, drug users, murderers, thieves, and child abusers, all of whom are now referred to as having one form or another of “addiction” and are thus either “sick” or suffering from “mental illness.”
-
-
Dangerously well spoken misinformation
- By Andrew on 09-12-20
By: Thomas Szasz
-
Psychiatry
- The Science of Lies
- By: Thomas Szasz
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Over four hours of rant, with lack of rationale
- By Michael on 04-11-12
By: Thomas Szasz
-
The Myth of Mental Illness
- Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct
- By: Thomas S. Szasz MD
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Szasz's classic book revolutionized thinking about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. By diagnosing unwanted behavior as mental illness, psychiatrists, Szasz argues, absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions and instead blame their alleged illness. He also critiques Freudian psychology as a pseudoscience and warns against the dangerous overreach of psychiatry into all aspects of modern life.
-
-
read this book..
- By Michael Ten on 02-23-21
-
Cynical Theories
- How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody
- By: Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay
- Narrated by: Helen Pluckrose
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn't practice yoga? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only White people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed to challenge the logic of Western society? In this probing volume, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields.
-
-
Vast Amount of Jargon Lost Me
- By P. Jackson on 10-23-20
By: Helen Pluckrose, and others
-
Saving Normal
- An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life
- By: Allen Frances MD
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, warns that mislabeling everyday problems as mental illness has shocking implications for individuals and society: Stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, misallocation of medical resources, and draining of the budgets of families and the nation.
-
-
Right on the money
- By Mentecuerpo on 03-29-19
By: Allen Frances MD
-
Escape from Freedom
- By: Erich Fromm
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
lf a man cannot stand freedom, he will probably turn fascist. This, in the fewest possible words, is the essential argument in this modem classic, Escape from Freedom. The author, Erich Fromm, is a distinguished psychologist, late of Berlin and Heidelberg, now of New York City.
-
-
Why is this not required reading in high school?
- By Xander on 09-07-16
By: Erich Fromm
-
The Myth of Psychotherapy
- Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression
- By: Thomas Szasz
- Narrated by: Robin Lawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Until recent years, “bad” and “immoral” were the terms used to describe people who are now referred to as “sick” and “in need of treatment.” Moral and religious perspective has been replaced by medical and therapeutic rhetoric. It is little wonder why the world is plagued by legions of rapists, drug users, murderers, thieves, and child abusers, all of whom are now referred to as having one form or another of “addiction” and are thus either “sick” or suffering from “mental illness.”
-
-
Dangerously well spoken misinformation
- By Andrew on 09-12-20
By: Thomas Szasz
-
Psychiatry
- The Science of Lies
- By: Thomas Szasz
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Over four hours of rant, with lack of rationale
- By Michael on 04-11-12
By: Thomas Szasz
-
The Myth of Mental Illness
- Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct
- By: Thomas S. Szasz MD
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Szasz's classic book revolutionized thinking about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. By diagnosing unwanted behavior as mental illness, psychiatrists, Szasz argues, absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions and instead blame their alleged illness. He also critiques Freudian psychology as a pseudoscience and warns against the dangerous overreach of psychiatry into all aspects of modern life.
-
-
read this book..
- By Michael Ten on 02-23-21
-
Cynical Theories
- How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody
- By: Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay
- Narrated by: Helen Pluckrose
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn't practice yoga? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only White people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed to challenge the logic of Western society? In this probing volume, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields.
-
-
Vast Amount of Jargon Lost Me
- By P. Jackson on 10-23-20
By: Helen Pluckrose, and others
-
Saving Normal
- An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life
- By: Allen Frances MD
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, warns that mislabeling everyday problems as mental illness has shocking implications for individuals and society: Stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, misallocation of medical resources, and draining of the budgets of families and the nation.
-
-
Right on the money
- By Mentecuerpo on 03-29-19
By: Allen Frances MD
-
Escape from Freedom
- By: Erich Fromm
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
lf a man cannot stand freedom, he will probably turn fascist. This, in the fewest possible words, is the essential argument in this modem classic, Escape from Freedom. The author, Erich Fromm, is a distinguished psychologist, late of Berlin and Heidelberg, now of New York City.
-
-
Why is this not required reading in high school?
- By Xander on 09-07-16
By: Erich Fromm
-
Trauma and Memory
- Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory
- By: Peter A. Levine PhD, Bessel A. van der Kolk - foreword M.D.
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Trauma and Memory, best-selling author Dr. Peter Levine (creator of the Somatic Experiencing approach) tackles one of the most difficult and controversial questions of PTSD/trauma therapy: Can we trust our memories? While some argue that traumatic memories are unreliable and not useful, others insist that we absolutely must rely on memory to make sense of past experience. Dr. Levine suggests that there are elements of truth in both camps.
-
-
What you need to know before buying this book
- By Jerry L. Cook on 12-07-19
By: Peter A. Levine PhD, and others
-
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
- Close Encounters with Addiction
- By: Gabor Maté
- Narrated by: Daniel Maté
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this timely and profoundly original book, best-selling writer and physician Gabor Maté looks at the epidemic of addictions in our society, tells us why we are so prone to them, and what is needed to liberate ourselves from their hold on our emotions and behaviours.
-
-
Gabor should have been the narrator
- By Stacey on 08-16-19
By: Gabor Maté
-
Mind Fixers
- Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness
- By: Anne Harrington
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1980s, American psychiatry announced that it was time to toss aside Freudian ideas of mental disorder because the true path to understanding and treating mental illness lay in brain science, biochemistry, and drugs. This sudden call to revolution, however, was not driven by any scientific breakthroughs. Nor was it as unprecedented as it seemed. Why had previous efforts stalled? Was this latest call really any different? In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington offers the first comprehensive history of the troubled search for the biological basis of mental illness.
-
-
A summary relevant to each of us
- By R3 on 04-28-19
By: Anne Harrington
-
On Becoming a Person
- A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy
- By: Carl R. Rogers, Peter D. Kramer MD - introduction
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The late Carl Rogers, founder of the humanistic psychology movement, revolutionized psychotherapy with his concept of "client-centered therapy." His influence has spanned decades, but that influence has become so much a part of mainstream psychology that the ingenious nature of his work has almost been forgotten. With a new introduction by Peter Kramer, this landmark book is a classic in its field and a must-listen for anyone interested in clinical psychology or personal growth.
-
-
An introduction to the core humanistic issues
- By Amazon Customer on 04-08-18
By: Carl R. Rogers, and others
-
Mad in America
- Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill
- By: Robert Whitaker
- Narrated by: Chris Kayser
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world’s poorest countries. In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy. The widespread use of lobotomies in the 1920s and 1930s gave way in the 1950s to electroshock and a wave of new drugs.
-
-
A Real Life Horror Story
- By Q. A. Bradford on 02-16-17
By: Robert Whitaker
-
The Selfish Gene
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.
-
-
Interesting, but too many post-scripts
- By Hailey Spillane on 08-09-17
By: Richard Dawkins
-
Democracy in America
- By: Alexis de Tocqueville
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 34 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and civil servant, made a nine-month journey through the eastern United States. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation’s evolving politics. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America.
-
-
Most Listenable, if not the Best Translation
- By Michael Allen on 10-04-13
-
Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom
- By: Michael Rectenwald
- Narrated by: William Williams
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom explores the reach, penetration, power, and impact of Big Digital or the mega-information managers, social media platforms, Artificial Intelligence developers, providers of other web applications and functionalities, and the architects and proponents of the promised Internet of Things.
-
-
Not what I was expecting
- By Anonymous User on 02-11-20
-
Live Not by Lies
- A Manual for Christian Dissidents
- By: Rod Dreher
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can't happen in their country. Many American Christians are making that mistake today, sleepwalking through the erosion of our freedoms. Live Not by Lies will wake them and equip them for the long resistance.
-
-
A Must Read For All Christians!
- By Chuck B. on 10-02-20
By: Rod Dreher
-
Parallel Worlds
- A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
- By: Michio Kaku
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Parallel Worlds, world-renowned physicist and best-selling author Michio Kaku - an author who "has a knack for bringing the most ethereal ideas down to earth" (Wall Street Journal) - takes listeners on a fascinating tour of cosmology, M-theory, and its implications for the fate of the universe.
-
-
excellent book
- By Nicolas on 09-20-16
By: Michio Kaku
-
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
- By: Christopher Lasch
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this challenging work, Christopher Lasch makes an accessible critique of what is wrong with the values and beliefs of America's professional and managerial elites. The distinguished historian argues that democracy today is threatened not by the masses, as Jose Ortega y Gasset ( The Revolt of the Masses) had said, but by the elites. These elites - mobile and increasingly global in outlook - refuse to accept limits or ties to nation and place.
-
-
The last twenty years proves the author right
- By Del Lewis-Chia on 08-08-20
-
Maps of Meaning
- By: Jordan B. Peterson
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 30 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.
-
-
The lectures are many times better
- By Katarina on 04-13-19
Publisher's Summary
Defining "medicalization" as the perception of nonmedical conditions as medical problems and nondiseases as diseases, Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to exposing the dangers of "medicalizing" the conditions of some who simply refuse to conform to society's expectations.
Szasz argues that modern psychiatry's tireless ambition to explain the human condition has led to the treatment of life's difficulties and oddities as clinical illnesses rather than as humanity revealed in its fullness.
This collection of impassioned essays, published between 1973 and 2006, chronicles the author's long campaign against the orthodoxies of psychiatry. From "Medicine to Magic" to "Medicine as Social Control", the audiobook delves into the fascinating history of medicalization, including "The Discovery of Drug Addiction", "Persecutions for Witchcraft and Drugcraft", and "Food Abuse and Foodaholism".
In a society that has little tolerance for those who live outside its rules, Dr. Szasz's writings are as relevant today as ever.
Critic Reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael Ten
- 09-09-16
good book
good book. read it. outlaw psychiatric slavery and psychiatric oppression.
Read Thomas Szaszs other books
I recommend Fatal Freedom, insanity and suicide Prohibition. read all his books
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tyler Walker
- 04-17-20
Our handling of Covid-19=Therapeutic-State
This information is most useful when we consider the Therapeutic-State and the handling of covid-19.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Luigi Grimaldi
- 02-11-15
A convincing piece for Capitalist Medicine
This is an excellent book that, via deductive logic and rationale thought dispels the idea that a state-run medical system is the only system. These systems will all evolve back to a free market over time.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sean
- 09-26-16
Weird
This guy has never met a person with schizophrenia. He also speaks about abolishing the insanity plea without any critique of the prison industrial complex. Dr. Szasz, we are already living in a world where people with mentally illness languish in prison and suffer through poverty. Does this mean you were right?
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Alan Michael Forrester
- 12-26-16
An overview of Szasz's ideas
"The Medicalization of Everyday Life" contains a selection of Szasz's essays about how moral and political disagreements are often portrayed as medical problems rather than problems in living. The narrator is clear and can be easily understood. It is an excellent book to listen to if you want to get an impression of the full scope of Szasz's ideas so that you can decide what other Szasz books you might like to read.
Psychiatry is a prominent example of medicalisation. Jim is behaving in a way that Jill dislikes. Instead of discussing Jim's behaviour or leaving Jim, Jill calls in a psychiatrist who declares Jim mentally ill. Thus a moral problem is obfuscated by portraying it as a medical problem.
Another example is that people are uncomfortable with discussing suicide. So instead of discussing the reasons why a person might commit suicide we try to deprive people of the means to commit suicide. Two policies used to do this are drug prohibition and involuntary commitment for dangerousness to yourself or others.
These positions and many others are explained in this book in more depth and with greater clarity than is possible in a book review. Anybody who wants to be challenged to think more about the ways in which we deny personal responsibility and the terrible implications of doing so should listen to this book.
The narration of the book is clear.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 11-21-18
Interesting and thought provoking
Interesting and though-provoking essays by an important libertarian intellectual and psychiatrist. As a psychiatrist myself I consider this book essential reading for mental health professionals. Narration is quite monotonous and cold, which is a shame.