The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays

By: Thomas Szasz

Narrated by: Gary D. MacFadden

Defining "medicalization" as the perception of nonmedical conditions as medical problems and nondiseases as diseases, Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to exposing the dangers of "medicalizing" the conditions of some who simply refuse to conform to society's expectations.

Szasz argues that modern psychiatry's tireless ambition to explain the human condition has led to the treatment of life's difficulties and oddities as clinical illnesses rather than as humanity revealed in its fullness.

This collection of impassioned essays, published between 1973 and 2006, chronicles the author's long campaign against the orthodoxies of psychiatry. From "Medicine to Magic" to "Medicine as Social Control", the audiobook delves into the fascinating history of medicalization, including "The Discovery of Drug Addiction", "Persecutions for Witchcraft and Drugcraft", and "Food Abuse and Foodaholism".

In a society that has little tolerance for those who live outside its rules, Dr. Szasz's writings are as relevant today as ever.

©2007 Thomas Szasz (P)2014 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"This is a wonderful, impassioned book that is, considering the recent media attention to psychopharmaceuticals, a welcome investigation of the social ramifications involved." ( Publishers Weekly)

A convincing piece for Capitalist Medicine

This is an excellent book that, via deductive logic and rationale thought dispels the idea that a state-run medical system is the only system. These systems will all evolve back to a free market over time.

good book

good book. read it. outlaw psychiatric slavery and psychiatric oppression.

Read Thomas Szaszs other books

I recommend Fatal Freedom, insanity and suicide Prohibition. read all his books

Our handling of Covid-19=Therapeutic-State

This information is most useful when we consider the Therapeutic-State and the handling of covid-19.

This book contains excellent arguments and insights.

This book contains accessing arguments and insights. Doctor Thomas Szas's writings are a "must read."

Weird

This guy has never met a person with schizophrenia. He also speaks about abolishing the insanity plea without any critique of the prison industrial complex. Dr. Szasz, we are already living in a world where people with mentally illness languish in prison and suffer through poverty. Does this mean you were right?