"Psychiatry is institutionalized scientism: it is the systematic imitation, impersonation, counterfeiting, and deception. This is the formula: every adult smokes (drinks, engages in sexual activity, etc.); hence, to prove that he is an adult, the adolescent smokes (drinks, engages in sexual activity, etc). Mutatis mutandis: every science consists of classification, control, and prediction; hence to prove psychiatry is a science, the psychiatrist classifies, controls, predicts. The result is that he classifies people as mad; that he confines them as dangerous (to themselves or others); and that he predicts people's behavior, robbing them of their free will and hence of their very humanity."
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Academics from the United StatesJews from the United StatesHumanistsImmigrants to the United StatesPsychiatrists from the United States
Original Language: English
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"Science and Scientism", p. 115.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz
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Thomas Szasz
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