BEYOND THE ADVANCED PSYCHIATRIC SOCIETY- A COLLECTIVE RESEARCH/ OLTRE LA SOCIETA' PSICHIATRICA AVANZATA- UNA RICERCA COLLETTIVA


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venerdì 5 ottobre 2012

Szasz is dead/ Szasz è morto

Szasz è morto
l'ho saputo in una mail da londra, oggi, da Anthony Stadlen: 

"Dear colleague,

1. I said I would let you know when the various Thomas Szasz obituaries appeared in British newspapers.

My obituary appears on p. 42 of the Guardia

n today, and online. Some of you will know the difficulty I had in getting this published at all. The editor's concern was "balance", but, on 1 October, the day he stated this, an obituary of a professor of psychiatry who specialised in addictions appeared in the Guardian: it contained not the slightest hint of any controversy or doubt about the concept of addiction, or indeed about anything the good professor had ever said or done. His work was a priori, in itself, "balanced", part of the best of all possible worlds.

The four main "serious" London newspapers now have, or will have, published obituaries of Szasz by people who understood his argument. For one paper to do this would be unusual. For all four London papers to do so is startling. Contrast the New York Times and other American papers. Morton Schatzman wrote an excellent obituary for the Independent, and I arranged that three recipients of Szasz awards would cover the Daily Telegraph (Richard Vatz), The Times (Zvi Lothane), and the Guardian (myself). Schatzman's, Vatz's and my obituaries have been published and are online,and Lothane's has been filed and will appear shortly.


Independent (Schatzman) (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/thomas-szasz-psychiatrist-and-author-of-the-influential-book-the-myth-of-mental-illness-8166439.html
Telegraph (Vatz - anonymous) (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/medicine-obituaries/9551378/Dr-Thomas-Szasz.html)
Guardian (Stadlen) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/04/thomas-szasz)

My daughter has drawn my attention to the fact that, in my Guardian obituary, the terms "mental patient" and "mental hospital" were censored and replaced by "patient" and "psychiatric hospital", or simply excised, after the final version to be published had been agreed with the Guardian obituaries editor. Apparently "mental" is, in this context, politically incorrect. Also, the references to slavery, the Inquisition, and police states were removed from the agreed final version. Fortunately, it still makes sense without them."

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