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JULES H. MASSERMAN, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1963;9(2):175-178.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In his book The Myth of Mental Illness and in other writings^1-4 Thomas Szasz has challenged some of the basic tenets of modern dynamic and social psychiatry. It is my purpose here to examine his critique.

Dr. Szasz' Theses

In essence, Dr. Szasz proposes that modern psychiatry came into being about tenscore years ago as the illegitimate offspring of an unholy liaison between physicians and lawyers; Dr. Szasz sayeth not who seduced whom. Since the parents were—and, according to Szasz, still are and ought to be—strangers who spoke different languages and had different habitats, ikons, and rituals, psychiatrists have ever since been caught in a double bind of schizophrenogenic proportions. Thus, analysts currently profess to acknowledge no moral or legal values, yet most are both ethical and law abiding, whereas social psychiatrists tend to equate morality with maturity and rationality—terms which are equally arbitrary and oppressive. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
CHICAGO

Footnotes
Read before the Illinois Psychiatric Society, March 10, 1963.

This is a somewhat surprising allusion, since Szasz must know how often Freud tried to make the world safe for psychoanalysis by strenuous efforts outside his office: eg, by proposing at the 1910 International Congress in Zurich that Jung be made its lifelong dictator, and then at the Hague Congress in 1920 by constituting the oligarchy of the Secret Seven of the Ring (himself, Abraham, Eitengon, Ferenczi, Jones, Rank, and Sachs) whom he delegated to transmit his doctrines and their institutionalized perpetuation.

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