Szasz under friendly fire: damned with faint praise

This essay is a critical review of recent collections of articles by friends and colleagues of Thomas Szasz. Apart from the usual misunderstandings and wilful misinterpretations of Szasz's social psychology generally and critique of mental illness specifically, his friends and colleagues add a new dimension to Szaszian criticism by damning him with faint praise. Ignoring his indebtedness to social psychologist, George Herbert Mead, they interpret his work as an ideological defence of libertarianism, rather than as a logical critique of mental illness. A defence is, therefore, especially indicated.