Suicide Prohibition Quotes

“Incarceration in a mental hospital is unlawful deprivation of liberty, that mental illnesses are fictitious diseases, and that coercive psychiatry is social control, not medical care.”
― Thomas Szasz, Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine

“Suicide prohibitions have not succeeded in preventing suicides but have succeeded in preventing people from having an honest, private conversation about life and death. Those persons who trust mental health professionals with their innermost thoughts may quickly find themselves punished with a “seventy-two-hour hold” or worse. Suicidal persons and their would-be helpers alike are paralyzed by prohibitionist censorship, deception, and legislation requiring the betrayal of trust. The first and major victim of the war on suicide, as in all wars, is loss of liberty.”
― Thomas Szasz, Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine

“There is no evidence that suicide prevention prevents suicide. Psychiatrists and psychiatric hospitals are regularly sued and found liable for patient suicides. Psychiatrists kill themselves at three times the rate of the general public.”
― Thomas Szasz, Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine

“Rejection of dependence on the government is a symptom of paranoid anxiety, a mental illness.”
― Thomas Szasz, Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine