E. Fuller Torrey is the most prominent advocate of forced psychiatric treatment in the United States today. He regards the use of coerced therapy as so medically and socially important that it justifies deceiving the patient. The author presents a critical review of Torrey’s propagandizing for the increased use of psychiatric force and fraud in “treating mental illness,” noting that in the past, Torrey had condemned these very practices. In his book The Death of Psychiatry, Torrey agreed with Szasz’s criticism of the concept of mental illness and opposition to involuntary psychiatric interventions and the insanity defense. He was invited to respond to this article but did not.
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