Thomas Szasz

“If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.” ~Thomas Szasz

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) was a Hungarian-American academic, psychiatrist, and author best known for his criticism of psychiatric diagnosis, involuntary hospitalization, and forced treatment. He argued that psychiatry often used medical language to address problems of behavior, conflict, and social control. He was as a radical critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry. He is celebrated—and highly controversial—for spearheading the "anti-psychiatry" movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Many of Szasz's perspectives spoke directly to Richard "Dick" Price's experience with the mental health system. Dick had been involuntarily hospitalized in his 20s and subjected to insulin shock and other psychiatric "treatments" that were considered cutting edge in the 1950s. Dick emerged with a unwavering clarity about the need for alternatives to what was then considered the norm. Szasz championed many of the principles Dick saw as essential to intrinsic wellness.

“The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity.”
~Thomas Szasz