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Book Cover
Book
Author Szasz, Thomas, 1920-2012.

Title The medicalization of everyday life : selected essays / Thomas Szasz
Edition First edition
Published Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press, 2007

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  306.461 Sza/Moe  AVAILABLE
Description xxvi, 202 pages ; 23 cm
Contents Mental illness: a metaphorical disease -- Mental illness: the new phlogiston -- Might makes the metaphor -- Diagnosis: from description to prescription -- Diagnoses are not diseases -- The existential identity thief -- Defining disease -- The origin of psychiatry: coercion as cure -- Hysteria as language -- Routine neonatal circumcision: a medical ritual -- The fatal temptation: drug control and suicide -- Pedophilia therapy -- Psychiatry's war on criminal responsibility -- Killing as therapy: the case of Terri Schiavo -- Peter Singer's ethics of medicalization -- Pharmacracy: the new despotism
Summary "This collection of impassioned essays, published between 1973 and 2006, chronicles Thomas Szasz's long campaign against the orthodoxies of "pharmacracy," that is, the alliance of medicine and the state. From "Diagnoses Are Not Diseases" to "The Existential Identity Thief," "Fatal Temptation," and "Killing as Therapy," the book delves into the complex evolution of medicalization, concluding with "Pharmacracy: The New-Despotism." In practice, society must draw a line between what counts as medical practice and what does not. Where it draws that line goes far in defining the kinds of laws its citizens live under, the kinds of medical care they receive, and the kinds of lives they are allowed to live."--BOOK JACKET
Notes Selection of essays presented or published between 1972 and 2006
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Subject Mental illness -- Classification -- Social aspects.
Mental illness -- Diagnosis -- Social aspects.
Nosology -- Social aspects.
Psychiatry -- Moral and ethical aspects.
Medical ethics.
Psychiatry -- ethics.
Health Policy.
Health Services Misuse.
Psychotherapy -- ethics.
SUBJECT United States. https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D014481
LC no. 2007022129
ISBN 9780815608677 (paperback: alk. paper)
0815608675 (paperback: alk. paper)