Thomas Szasz investigates whether modern psychotherapy functions as a secularized form of moral guidance disguised as medical treatment. Szasz, a psychiatrist and professor, utilizes his background in institutional psychiatry to argue that the therapeutic profession has usurped the role of traditional moral authority. He posits that by framing human conduct as a medical condition, the field obscures individual responsibility and ethical choice.

Critics and scholars often cite this work as a foundational text in the anti-psychiatry movement, noting its aggressive challenge to established medical norms. Readers frequently observe that the prose is highly polemical and dense, requiring a firm grasp of both philosophical and psychiatric concepts to fully engage with the author's arguments.