• “If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.”
  

• “Schizophrenia is defined so vaguely that, in actuality, it is a term often applied to almost any kind of behavior of which the speaker disapproves.”

• “If schizophrenia…turns out to have a biochemical cause and cure, schizophrenia would no longer be one of the diseases for which a person would be involuntarily committed. In fact, it would then be treated by neurologists, and psychiatrists then have no more to do with it than they do with Glioblastoma [malignant tumor], Parkinsonism, and other diseases of the brain.”

• “‘Mental illness’ is an expression, a metaphor that describes an offending, disturbing, shocking, or vexing conduct, action, or pattern of behavior, such as schizophrenia, as an ‘illness’ or disease.”

Back: Szasz on His Book, The Myth of Mental Illness

Next: Szasz on Involuntary Commitment

Back to Main: CCHR Co-founder Dr. Thomas Szasz Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus