A roundtable discussion with three people who have experienced the system, first-hand
Anti-psychiatry and mad pride movements have been questioning and assessing the role of psychiatry in health care and society—from the “patient’s” perspective—for decades now, but recent concerns about what appears to be a resurgence in the use of electroconvulsive therapy and questions about the growing use of psychiatric medications has added impetus to the debate. (more…)
Phebe Wolframe’s research into connections among madness, gender, and academia
PhebeAnn Wolframe is a proud psychiatric survivor and an advocate for mad studies who is currently completing a PhD degree in English and Cultural Studies. Phebe also presented at the PsychOUT Conference in Toronto last May. Her presentation was titled The Madwoman in the Academy: Making Space for The Mad Movement in Feminist Scholarship and Interdisciplinary Studies.
Phebe points out that the second-wave feminist movement and the mad movements, though sharing many points of intersection, have not managed to work effectively in tandem. (more…)
Anti-psychiatry activists respond to media reports that use of ECT is increasing
The Canadian Psychiatric Association recently issued its first position paper on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) since 1992, saying that ECT “should remain readily available as a treatment option.” The position paper was followed by a major article carried by Canwest newspapers across Canada, suggesting that electroshock therapy is experiencing a comeback. Activists and groups, such as Mind Freedom International, are alarmed by the position paper. Canadian anti-psychiatry activist Bonnie Burstow says that, at a minimum, ECT should be phased out [source: The Ottawa Citizen] due to its documented harms. (more…)
Robert Whitaker updates Mad in America, the revealing history of psychiatric treatment
In Robert Whitaker’s Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, “one lone author bears moral witness to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people abused, tortured and damaged by the psychiatric establishment.” The book is a history of the treatment of the severely mentally ill in the United States from colonial times until today, and it may surprise many readers who assume that the modern psychopharmacology era has “revolutionized” the care of the severely mentally ill. The second edition of Mad in America has just recently been published. (more…)
Looking at obsessive compulsive disorder: From arbitrariness of diagnosis to roles of recovering patient, the use of creative nonfiction in research
Bonnie Burstow’s anti-psychiatry activism and an attrition model for the termination of psychiatry
For decades antipsychiatry activists have called for an end to psychiatry but the movement has offered little vision of how to bring about that end. An unpopular movement such as antipsychiatry which is at odds with the state and prevailing hegemony begins at a serious disadvantage. (more…)
