Born: April 15, 1929, Budapest, HungaryDied: September 8, 2012, Syracuse, New YorkOn October 28, 2012, in Los Angeles, Thomas Szasz was the honored guest and keynote speaker at the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychia- try 14th Annual Conference.Having authored more than 600 papers and 35 books, having received perhaps 50 pres- tigious awards including Humanist of the Year in 1973, after receiving a standing ovation by a packed audience, he took the podium with both a twinkle in his eye and a sly smile: "Well I hope you like me as much after my presentation as you do before." This was not false modesty or just a cute joke. In his presentation he told us:The first task of the psychiatric critic worth his salt is to repudiate this psychiatrized politics: He must oppose the use of psychiatric force and fraud; reject the idea of mental illness; eschew psychi- atric language and condemn its journalistic and professional use. Most psychiatric critics, past and present, fail miserably to pass this elementary test. Or, more precisely, they regard the principle as benevolent and support the therapeutic state. (This term, "therapeutic state," was coined by Szasz in 1963. See Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry, Syracuse University Press, 1989.) He went on: The historical evidence compels us to conclude that, after more than 200 years of psychiatric criticism, we have made no progress in unshackling the psychiatric slave from his psychiatric master.You see, this man of diminutive physical stature with both gigantic intellect and force of character was there not just to critique the status quo but to critique those of us who fancy ourselves "reformers" of the system. Szasz ivas not a reformer. He was an abolition- ist. Together with colleagues George ]. Alexander and Erving Goffman, he founded in 1970 die American Association for die Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization, which actually published a magazine called The Abolitionist.So, even as we honored him, he remained our potent critic. David Cohen said, "Szasz is the most self-actualized person I've ever met." He never wavered: Humans "acted" out of free will, did not "function" like machines or "behave" like animals. He was not going to let us off die hook. Not-so-subtly, he was poking fun at us and criticizing our conference which offered "Alternatives to Biological Psychiatry: If we don't medicate, what do we do?" Yes, Szasz mocked the obsessive use of pharmaceuticals-"Throw diem all into the ocean-bad for the fish, good for us"-and decried the destructive procedures of lobotomy and electroconvulsive therapy, but he was not there to debate what was good or bad "treat- ment." For Szasz-the libertarian, atheist, historian, anthropologist, and linguist-there was one and only one core belief "worth its salt" and that was a belief in human freedom and self-responsibility.No, the kind of treatment one sought out, as long as it was voluntary, was of second- ary concern to him. Coercive treatment (see Psychiatric Slavery, 1998) was always die primary target of Szasz's sharp wit, controlled anger, and incisive criticism. Szasz came to America to escape despotism. …