The main reason why the public, the media, and even many scientists fail to understand the problems uniquely characteristic of and intrinsic to psychiatry lies in the psychiatrists being MANDATED by society to fulfill multiple, often contradictory social roles: He is viewed and accepted as a neuroscientist, studying the brain; a neurologist, treating patients with brain diseases, with their consent; a mental health professional, treating patients with mental diseases, with or without their consent; a public health physician, protecting society from dangerous mental illnesses and dangerous mental patients; a philosopher and judge, deciding who has free will and responsibility for his actions and who has not, who should be punished and who should be treated; a guardian of incompetent persons, with power to decide every detail of his wards life; and a prison administrator and jailer, managing institutions for the confinement of persons deemed dangerous to themselves or others. No physician, no priest, no lawyer, no one else but the psychiatrist has this much power over other human beings.~Thomas Szasz, Pharmacracy, pgs. 87-88,
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 15:20:18 +0000
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