Psychiatry Disrupted

There is growing international resistance to the oppressiveness of psychiatry. While previous studies have critiqued psychiatry, Psychiatry Disrupted goes beyond theorizing what is wrong with it to theorizing how we might stop it. Introducing readers to the arguments and rationale for opposing psychiatry, the book combines perspectives from anti-psychiatry and critical psychiatry activism, mad activism, antiracist, critical, and radical disability studies, as well as feminist, Marxist, and anarchist thought. The editors and contributors are activists and academics - adult education and social work professors, psychologists, prominent leaders in the psychiatric survivor movement, and artists - from across Canada, England, and the United States. From chapters discussing feminist opposition to the medicalization of human experience, to the links between psychiatry and neo-liberalism, to internal tensions within the various movements and different identities from which people organize, the collection theorizes psychiatry while contributing to a range of scholarship and presenting a comprehensive overview of resistance to psychiatry in the academy and in the community. Contributors include Simon Adam (University of Toronto), Rosemary Barnes University of Toronto, Peter Beresford (Brunel University), Bonnie Burstow (University of Toronto), Chris Chapman (York University), Mark Cresswell (Durham University), Shaindl Diamond (York University), Chava Finkler (Memorial University), Ambrose Kirby (therapist in private practice, Brenda A. LeFrancois (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Mick McKeown (University of Central Lancashire), Robert Menzies (Simon Fraser University), China Mills (Oxford University), Tina Minkowitz (World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry), Ian Parker (University of Leicester), Susan Schellenberg, Helen Spandler (University of Central Lancashire), and AJ Withers (York University). A courageous anthology, Psychiatry Disrupted is a timely work that asks compelling activist questions that no other book in the field touches.

Bonnie Burstow is senior lecturer in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Brenda A. LeFrancois is associate professor in the School of Social Work with a cross-appointment in the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University. Shaindl Diamond is a community activist and psychologist in Toronto, Ontario.