Thomas S. Szasz

Thomas S. Szasz "is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He was born in Budapest, Hungary, came to United States in 1938, was naturalized in 1944, and received his M.D. from the University of Cincinnati in 1941.

"Long regarded as a maverick within his field, he has argued that mental illness (as opposed to organic disturbance) does not exist, but is rather a metaphor. Mental illness should rather be seen as “problems of living,” and psychiatry, he claimed, simply glosses over this difference. In line with this belief, he opposed use of the insanity plea in criminal cases, arguing that criminal law should be allowed to work unimpeded when a person has committed a dangerous act. Most controversially, he took the position that psychiatry is a repressive arm of the modern bureaucratic state and a tool for social control, because it can be used to imprison innocent people by “civil commitment” simply because their thought patterns are considered aberrant.

"He has been Staff Member, Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis; Fellow, Postgraduate Center for Mental Health; Visiting Professor, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Marquette University, and University of New Mexico; Senior Scholar, Eli Lilly Foundation; Civil Liberties Carey Lecturer, Cornell University Law School; C. P. Snow Lecturer, Ithaca University; Root Tilden Lecturer, New York University School of Law; Noel Buxton Lectureship, University of Essex; Robert S. Marx Lectureship, University of Cincinnati College of Law; Hardy Chair Lectureship, Hartwick College; E. S. Meyer Memorial Lecturer, University of Queensland Medical School; Honorary President, International Commission for Human Rights, London; Member of Board of Directors, National Council on Crime and Delinquency; Member of research advisory panel, Institute for the Study of Drug Addiction."


 * Board of Advisors, The Independent Institute/Personnel
 * Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute/Personnel
 * Advisory Board, Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics