In 1961, the late, great Thomas Szasz wrote a book called The Myth of Mental Illness. He followed this classic with several more, notably The Manufacture of Madnessand The Therapeutic State. He was a brave man, viciously attacked by his psychiatric colleagues in the 1960s and 1970s, but he persisted with his exploration of truth and liberty. Szasz was born to Jewish parents in Budapest in 1920 and moved to the US in 1938. He studied medicine and psychiatry, and served two years in the US Navy in the 1950s. What is astonishing about Szasz, like the Polish-born author Joseph Conrad, was his … Continue reading The Myth of Mental Illness