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Thomas Szasz | |
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Szász Tamás István | |
Born | Thomas Stephen Szasz April 15, 1920 |
Died | September 8, 2012 Manlius, New York, U.S.[1] | (aged 92)
Citizenship | Hungary, United States |
Alma mater | University of Cincinnati |
Known for | Criticism of psychiatry |
Spouse | Rosine Loshkajian (m. 1951; died 1971) |
Children | 2 |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Psychiatry |
Institutions | State University of New York Upstate Medical University |
Website | szasz |
Thomas Stephen Szasz (/sɑːs/ SAHSS; Hungarian: Szász Tamás István [saːs]; 15 April 1920 – 8 September 2012) was a Hungarian-American academic and psychiatrist. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.[2] A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, as what he saw as the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as scientism.
Szasz maintained throughout his career that he was not anti-psychiatry but rather that he opposed coercive psychiatry. He was a staunch opponent of civil commitment and involuntary psychiatric treatment, but he believed in and practiced psychiatry and psychotherapy between consenting adults.