Szasz in the 21st Century. 7. Coercion as Cure (2007). Inner Circle Seminar 144 (25 October 2009)

Thomas Szasz
Photograph by Steve Peters
Syracuse NY, April 2008

Thomas Szasz
in the 21st Century

7. Coercion as Cure:
A Critical History of Psychiatry (2007)

Anthony Stadlen
conducts Inner Circle Seminar No. 144
Sunday 25 October 2009
10 a.m. to 5 p.m

 

Reflection on the philosophy of psychotherapy is an urgent necessity. Too few psychotherapists have insisted, with Thomas Szasz, that ‘mental health’ is a metaphor. It is therefore not surprising that the Government plans to regulate psychotherapy as a ‘health profession’. The Inner Circle Seminars, however, seek to clarify psychotherapy as a moral, not a medical, practice.

Thomas Szasz remains the world’s foremost moral and existential philosopher of psychiatry and psychotherapy. He has already conducted two Inner Circle Seminars. He will conduct another on 13 June 2010 for his 90th birthday (15 April 2010), in preparation for which we are studying his ten books published since the millennium. Today we discuss the seventh, Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry (2007). This dark and terrifying book is perhaps Szasz’s most important since The Myth of Mental Illness (1961), an expanded, 50th-anniversary edition of which will be released by HarperCollins in March.

Venue: Durrants Hotel, 26–32 George Street, Marylebone, London W1H 5BJ
Cost: Students £108, others £135; some bursaries; mineral water, coffee, tea, biscuits, liquorice allsorts included
Apply to: Anthony Stadlen, ‘Oakleigh’, 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857 E-mail: stadlen@aol.com

For further information on seminars, visit: http://anthonystadlen.blogspot.com/

The Inner Circle Seminars were founded by Anthony Stadlen in 1996 as an ethical, existential, phenomenological search for truth in psychotherapy. They have been kindly described by Thomas Szasz as ‘Institute for Advanced Studies in the Moral Foundations of Human Decency and Helpfulness’. But they are independent of all institutes, schools and colleges.