Professor Thomas Szasz, iconic champion for liberty, pioneer in the fight against coercive psychiatry and co-founder of Citizens Commission on Human Rights, has passed away at the age of 92.
Considered by many scholars and academics to be psychiatry’s most authoritative critic, Dr. Szasz authored hundreds of articles and more than 35 books on the subject, the first being The Myth of Mental Illness, a book which rocked the very foundations of psychiatry when published more than 50 years ago. Szasz was Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York, Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, Lifetime Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Fellow of the International Academy of Forensic Psychology, whose life long list of educational accomplishments, credentials, honors, biographical listings and awards speak for themselves.
Szasz had long criticized the use of psychiatry as a means of social and political control stating, “Although we may not know it, we have, in our day, witnessed the birth of the Therapeutic State. This is perhaps the major implication of psychiatry as an institution of social control. When I use the term therapeutic state, I use it ironically, it’s therapeutic for the people who are doing the locking up, who are doing the therapy, it’s not therapeutic for the victims, for the patients.”
Dr. Szasz’s alliance with CCHR was formed out of this fundamental philosophy. He didn’t just write and speak about the use of coercive psychiatry, he personally represented the victims of it. In 1969 as a forming member of CCHR, he spoke on behalf of a Hungarian refugee, Victor Gyory, who had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution, stripped naked, held in isolation against his will, and forced to undergo electroshock. Szasz established that it was solely due to Gyory’s inability to speak English that had resulted in psychiatrists labeling him schizophrenic. Szasz’s testimony led to the hospital director discharging Gyory, a precedent-setting victory against involuntary commitment and coercive psychiatry.
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“I am probably the only psychiatrist in the world whose hands are clean,” Szasz told the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper in a 1992 interview. “I have never committed anyone. I have never given electric shock. I have never, ever, given drugs to a mental patient.”
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