The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected EssaysThis 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. |
Contents
A Metaphorical Disease | 3 |
The New Phlogiston | 10 |
Might Makes the Metaphor | 19 |
From Description to Prescription | 21 |
Diagnoses Are Not Diseases | 27 |
The Existential Identity Thief 1 | 37 |
Defining Disease | 41 |
PART TWO Disturbing Behavior and Medicines Responses to | 53 |
A Medical Ritual | 80 |
Drug Control and Suicide | 90 |
Pedophilia Therapy | 94 |
Psychiatrys War on Criminal Responsibility | 102 |
The Case of Terri Schiavo | 117 |
Peter Singers Ethics of Medicalization | 134 |
The New Despotism | 150 |
Notes | 171 |
Common terms and phrases
accessed April 15 adult American Psychiatric Association April 15 attribute autonomy behavior believe bodily body brain disease called cancer century circumcision claim Clinical coercion commit concept court crime criminal Cromer cure death defense defined depression diagnoses disorder doctors drugs economic emphasis added Ethics euthanasia example explain homosexuality human hysteria hysterical Ibid idea individual infants insane insanity defense Jonathan Swift Journal justify language liberty living madhouse masturbation means medi medicine Meloling mental health mental hospitals mental illness mental patient metaphor Michael Schiavo mind modern moral murder National Nazi nondisease nosology Osler pedophilia person Peter Singer Pharmacracy phlogiston physician political practice problem psychiatry public health responsibility ritual role Schindlers schizophrenia scientific sexual sick Sigmund Freud Singer social society suffering suicide symptom Syracuse University Syracuse University Press term Terri Schiavo therapeutic Thomas Szasz tion treat treatment York