From the back cover:

"In a short, powerfully written book, Dr Szasz takes aim once more at conventional psychaitry, which labels individuals "mentally ill", and at the attendant system of courts, hospitals, and psychiatrists who confine patients against their will. The focal point here is a ... Supreme Court case involving a man forcibly committed to a Florida asylum for 14 years. In refuting the widely held notion that the landmark Donaldson case represents an advance in the rights of mental patients Dr. Szasz has put the American psychiatric and legal establishments on trial, with disturbing results.He investigates abuses in diagnostic methods, elctroshock "therapy" and the judicial apparatus. ... his book, which could stir up a hornet's nest of controversy, is essentia reading for those concerned with the care of the emotionally disturbed, and the moral delimmas of psychiatry." -- Publisher's Weekly