GENERAL COURSE DESCRIPTION This is a course on the work of Thomas Szasz, M.D., the legendary, influential, iconoclastic author and lecturer. Since publishing “The Myth of Mental Illness” in 1961, professor of psychiatry Thomas Szasz has been the scourge of the psychiatric establishment. In dozens of books and articles he has argued passionately and knowledgably against compulsory commitment of the mentally ill, against the insanity defense in criminal trials, against the "diseasing" of voluntary human practices such as addiction and homosexual behavior, against the drugging of schoolchildren with Ritalin and for the right to suicide. Most controversial of all has been his denial that "mental illness" is literal disease, treatable by medical practitioners. Many years ago I (OZ) worked in a mental health clinic in a local jail and was ordered to conduct a suicide assessment on a death row inmate. My bafflement quickly turned to outrage at the ludicrousness of the request for me to determine whether the prisoner should be placed on suicide watch so he would not kill himself before the state had a chance to execute him.  Trying to ground my refusal and indignation, I came across Thomas Szasz's 1986 article, "The Case against Suicide Prevention," published in American Psychologist.  Twenty years later, in 2006, I was able to tell the story to Dr. Szasz in person.  It drew a sweet affirming smile and an outraged look of recognition of the immorality of the situation. Regardless of whether one agrees with Dr. Szasz’s views or not, it is importance that every psychologist, social worker, family therapist, counselor and psychiatrist becomes familiar with his critical view of psychiatry and psychotherapy. Throughout his distinguished career Thomas Szasz has unwaveringly defended the values of humanism, personal autonomy and personal responsibility against all who would constrain freedom with psychiatric shackles. He steadfastly points out the shortcomings in involuntary commitment procedures, the injustices of economic inadequacies and the over-reliance on psychiatric expert opinion by judges and juries. This course introduces Szasz’s most important question, whether or not “mental illness” actually exists. It presents his classic 1960 article, “The Myth of Mental Illness,” and imparts Szasz’s views, in his own words, on the most important issues of psychiatric coercion, involuntary commitment, the politics of psychiatry and what he calls the “Therapeutic State, the fallacy of psychiatric diagnosis, the faulty view of psychiatry as an exact science, the question of whether suicide is a personal choice and the danger of what he calls the “tyranny of pharmacracy.” The course is comprised of five classic original articles, all authored by Szasz himself. The first one is probably one of the hallmark articles in our field, “The Myth of Mental Illness.” It set the stage for the next half century of Szasz’s contribution as it identifies alternative ways to regard those with emotional and psychological symptoms, instead of simply diagnosing them with “mental illness.” The second, “The Cure of Souls in the Therapeutic State," describes the transformation of psychoanalysis away from its idyllic, power-free state into its problematic marriage with modern-day psychiatry. The third, “The Case against Psychiatric Coercion,” further reviews ways in which psychiatry has become coercive instead of associative. The fourth article, “College Suicide: Caveat Vendor,” asserts that suicide is a personal choice and responsibility, contesting that others be held accountable for this action. The final article, “The Therapeutic State: The Tyranny of Pharmacracy,” contains Szasz’s perspectives about the promotion and integration of medical care into the sociopolitical arena.