Psychiatry, says Dr. Szasz, is a phenomenon of social segregation, an invention of psychiatrists, who are the modern witch hunters; psychiatry is a new sibylline instrument of domination by the Establishment or by the Totalitarian State; the psychiatrist replaces the executioner, the “madman” the heretic, the mental asylum the concentration camp. The methods change but the violence remains. The vicious circle of latent aggression and unnecessary over-repression is fueled.

To justify his point of view, Thomas S. Szasz carries out a comparative study between the Inquisition and certain psychiatric practices, showing the repressive ingredients of the former, elements that will pass to our days wrapped in a supposedly scientific terminology. In the Middle Ages, to be declared a Satanist it was enough to discover alleged stigmata on the victim. Once the guilt was proven – or torn away – the “possessed” was incinerated. Today, to be diagnosed as “mentally ill”, it is enough for the psychiatrist to extract a “confession” from us or for us to involuntarily present certain “symptoms”. The patient – ​​previously the heretic – will then be rejected as an uncomfortable or dangerous individual. The repressive circle is closed. The System, for its own survival, removes the Other from its own body.