In this short work, Dr. Szasz takes aim at conventional psychiatry, and at the attendant system of courts, hospitals, and psychiatrists who confine patients against their will. The focal point 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 Donaldson case represents an advancement in the rights of mental patients, Dr. Szasz has put the American legal establishments on trial.