The Ethics of Psychoanalysis

by Thomas Szasz

s/t: The Theory & Method of Autonomous Psychotherapy
"In this book, I propose to describe psychotherapy as a social action, not as healing. So conceived, psychoanalytic treatment is characterized by its aim--to increase the patient's knowledge of himself and others and hence his freedom of choice in the conduct of his life; by its method--the analysis of communications, rules, and games; and lastly, by its social context--a contractual, rather than a 'therapeutic, ' relationship between analyst and analysand."

Genres: Psychology, Psychiatry

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Thomas Stephen Szasz (pronounced /sas/; born April 15, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary) was a psychiatrist and academic. He was Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He was a prominent figure in the antipsychiatry movement, a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as of scientism. He is well known for his books, The Myth of Mental Illness (1960) and The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement which set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.

Reviews

[John Hancock]

Not Szasz's best book, although it was one of his favorites, for some odd reason... maybe because he wrote many books after this one, and learned a lot in the mean time.

https://psychiatricsurvivors.wordpres...