Professor of Religious Studies Heidi M. Ravven was an invited participant in a panel discussion with Thomas Szasz on May 30 at the meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association Study Group at Upstate Medical Center Department of Psychiatry in Syracuse, N.Y.

Szasz, professor of psychiatry emeritus at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, is well-known for his critique of psychiatry and psychoanalysis and is a critic of coercive practices within psychiatry. He is the author of 36 books, including The Myth of Mental Illness (1961; New York: HarperCollins, 1974, 2010) and, most recently, Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011).