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| The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct | |
|---|---|
The 1984 Harper Perennial edition | |
| Author(s) | Thomas Szasz |
| Country | United States of America |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Psychology |
| Publisher | Harper & Row |
| Publication date | 1961 |
The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a book by Thomas Szasz first published in 1961. It is perhaps the best known argument against the tendency of psychiatrists to label people who are 'disabled by living' as mentally ill. Richard Webster notes that its arguments are similar to his in a number of significant respects, but that their views of hysteria and the work of Jean-Martin Charcotare quite different, since Szasz assumes that hysteria was an emotional problem and that Charcot's patients were not genuinely mentally ill.[1]
The Myth of Mental Illness was described by David Cooper as "a decisive, carefully documented demystification of psychiatric diagnostic labelling in general."[2]
