Many years ago I 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, a couple of months ago, 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. Today, we at the Zur Institute are celebrating our 50th online course, which is devoted to the work of Dr. Thomas Szasz, the world's foremost critic of psychiatric coercions and excuses. It has been 45 years since he wrote his ground-breaking book, The Myth of Mental Illness. Thomas Szasz, author of 30 books, has been the scourge of the psychiatric establishment. Over the past four decades Szasz, an MD, has argued passionately and knowledgeably against involuntary commitment of the mentally ill, against the war on drugs, against the insanity defense, against the use of medications to "cure all ails," and for the right to commit suicide. Most controversial of all has been his repudiation of mental illness as an accurate label to describe problems of living. Regardless of whether one agrees with Dr. Szasz's views on psychiatry or not, I believe that it is important that every psychologist, social worker, family therapist, counselor and psychiatrist at least becomes familiar with his critical views. Therefore, we have developed a new online course, entirely dedicated to Szasz's much-ignored and highly important work.  While many of us might have difficulty digesting and espousing Szasz's passionate beliefs, others of us can relate to Szasz's own famous words: "If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.  If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; If God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic." Here are some of Szasz's highly controversial ideas: Psychoanalysis is a moral dialog, not a medical treatment. Emotional and psychological symptoms do not reflect diseases of the brain and, therefore, are not indicators of mental illness. Involuntary psychiatric intervention is likened to imprisonment and is unethical and immoral.  Suicide is an issue of personal responsibility rather than organizational liability. It is an act of choice, not a reflection of disease. The general public believes that if all human problems are defined as symptoms of disease, they become maladies remediable by medical measures and are easily resolved. Child molestation, domestic violence and many other abhorrent behaviors are crimes, not sicknesses. Separation of medicine and the state is necessary for the protection and promotion of individual liberty, responsibility and dignity. In many ways public health projects have the potential to impact many lives, but guarantee little to each individual.

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