The Routledge International Handbook of Mad Studies


Book Description

By drawing broadly on international thinking and experience, this book offers a critical exploration of Mad Studies and advances its theory and practice. Comprised of 34 chapters written by international leading experts, activists and academics, this handbook introduces and advances Mad Studies, as well as exploring resistance and criticism, and clarifying its history, ideas, what it is, and what it can offer. It presents examples of mad studies in action, covering initiatives that have been taken, their achievements and what can be learned from them. In addition to sharing research findings and evidence, the book offers examples and insights for advancing understandings of experiences of madness and distress from the perspectives of those who have (had) those experiences, and also explores ways of supporting people oppressed by conventional understandings and systems. This book will be of interest to all scholars and students of Mad Studies, disability studies, sociology, socio- legal studies, mental health and medicine more generally.




Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health


Book Description

The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health offers the most comprehensive collection of theoretical and applied writings to date with which students, scholars, researchers and practitioners within the social and health sciences can systematically problematise the practices, priorities and knowledge base of the Western system of mental health. With the continuing contested nature of psychiatric discourse and the work of psy-professionals, this book is a timely return to theorising the business of mental health as a social, economic, political and cultural project: one which necessarily involves the consideration of wider societal and structural dynamics including labelling and deviance, ideological and social control, professional power, consumption, capital, neoliberalism and self-governance. Featuring original essays from some of the most established international scholars in the area, the Handbook discusses and provides updates on critical theories of mental health from labelling, social constructionism, antipsychiatry, Foucauldian and Marxist approaches to critical feminist, race and queer theory, critical realism, critical cultural theory and mad studies. Over six substantive sections, the collection additionally demonstrates the application of such theoretical ideas and scholarship to key topics including medicalisation and pharmaceuticalisation, the DSM, global psychiatry, critical histories of mental health, and talk therapy. Bringing together the latest theoretical work and empirical case studies from the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Canada, the Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health demonstrates the continuing need to think critically about mental health and illness, and will be an essential resource for all who study or work in the field.




Madness and Distress in Music Education


Book Description

Madness and Distress in Music Education offers an in-depth exploration of mental health and emotional distress in the context of music education, offering new ways of thinking about these experiences and constructing ways to support distress through affirming pedagogy, practices, and policies in music education. Centering the lived experiences of 15 people in a range of roles across music education who self-identify an issue with their mental health, the volume addresses impacts on both students and educators. The author draws on Mad Studies and disability studies to present new paradigms for thinking about Madness and distress in the music context. An essential resource for music educators, music education researchers, and preservice students seeking to understand the complexities of mental health in the music classroom, this book considers how people conceptualize their mental health, how distress impacts participation in music education, how music education may support or exacerbate distress, and what supports for distress can be implemented in music education.




The Routledge International Handbook of Disability and Global Health


Book Description

This handbook will raise awareness about the importance of health and well-being of people with disabilities in the context of the global development agenda: Leaving No-one Behind. There has been a growing discussion on how people with disabilities should be included in the global health landscape. An estimated one billion people have some form of disability, 80% of whom live in low- and middle-income settings. People with disabilities are more likely to be poor, with restricted access to health and social services, education, rehabilitation and employment. Despite this, people with disabilities are often overlooked in global health and development efforts. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that unless systematically planned for and included in policies and programmes, people with disabilities remain at an increased risk of being adversely affected in times of humanitarian crisis and emergency disasters. Divided into eight sections: Disability and Health Frameworks Health Justice, Rights and Bioethics Gendering Disability Health Disability and Global Mental Health Disability and Access to Healthcare, Including Workforce Development Crises and Health Technology and Digital Health Disability, Ageing and Dementia Care This handbook covers the full range of topics pertaining to disability and global health including inclusive health; access to rehabilitation; global mental health and disability; medical training and disability; community based inclusive development for improving health and rehabilitation; maternal health and sexual reproduction; preventive care and health promotion for people with disabilities; health, disability and indigenous knowledges; bioethics and human rights; data protection; and health in the global south. It will be of interest to all scholars, students and professionals working in the fields of disability studies, health studies, nursing, medicine, allied health, development studies and sociology.




Literatures of Madness


Book Description

Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health brings together scholars working in disability studies, mad studies, feminist theory, Indigenous studies, postcolonial theory, Jewish literature, queer studies, American studies, trauma studies, and comics to create an intersectional community of scholarship in literary disability studies of mental health. The collection contains essays on canonical authors and lesser known and sometimes forgotten writers, including Sylvia Plath, Louisa May Alcott, Hannah Weiner, Mary Jane Ward, Michelle Cliff, Lee Maracle, Joanne Greenberg, Ann Bannon, Jerry Pinto, Persimmon Blackbridge, and others. The volume addresses the under-representation of madness and psychiatric disability in the field of disability studies, which traditionally focuses on physical disability, and explores the controversies and the common ground among disability studies, anti-psychiatric discourses, mad studies, graphic medicine, and health/medical humanities.




Mad Studies Reader


Book Description

The last few years have brought increased writings from activists, artists, scholars, and concerned clinicians that cast a critical and constructive eye on psychiatry, mental health care, and the cultural relations of mental difference. With particular focus on accounts of lived experience and readings that cover issues of epistemic and social injustice in mental health discourse, the Mad Studies Reader brings together voices that advance anti-sanist approaches to scholarship, practice, art, and activism in this realm. Beyond offering a theoretical and historical overview of mad studies, this Reader draws on the perspectives, voices, and experiences of artists, mad pride activists, humanities and social science scholars, and critical clinicians to explore the complexity of mental life and mental difference. Voices from these groups confront and challenge standard approaches to mental difference. They advance new structures of meaning and practice that are inclusive of those who have been systematically subjugated and promote anti-sanist approaches to counter inequalities, prejudices, and discrimination. Confronting modes of psychological oppression and the power of a few to interpret and define difference for so many, the Mad Studies Reader asks the critical question of how these approaches may be reconsidered, resisted, and reclaimed. This collection will be of interest to mental health clinicians; students and scholars of the arts, humanities and social sciences; and anyone who has been affected by mental difference, directly or indirectly, who is curious to explore new perspectives.




Mad Matters


Book Description

In 1981, Toronto activist Mel Starkman wrote: ""An important new movement is sweeping through the western world.... The 'mad,' the oppressed, the ex-inmates of society's asylums are coming together and speaking for themselves."" Mad Matters is the first Canadian book to bring together the writings of this vital movement, which has grown explosively in the years since. With contributions from scholars in numerous disciplines, as well as activists and psychiatric survivors, it presents diverse critical voices that convey the lived experiences of the psychiatrized and challenges dominant understandings of ""mental illness."" The connections between mad activism and other liberation struggles are stressed throughout, making the book a major contribution to the literature on human rights and anti-oppression.




Mad Knowledges and User-Led Research


Book Description

This book presents a critical examination of the development of user involvement within research, and investigates the issues currently preventing a productive integration of Mad knowledges within research and practice. Drawing on social, linguistic and critical theories, it proposes the conditions needed to address the development of Mad epistemologies. The author’s unique approach deliberately highlights her own positionality and draws on decades of experience as a service recipient, survivor, activist and researcher to illustrate the structural and symbolic barriers faced. Employing concepts including epistemic injustice, individualization, normalization and structural violence, it suggests a radically new way of articulating ‘what’s the matter with us?’ In doing so, the book itself goes some way towards enacting the radical challenge to academic and epistemic hierarchies which, it is argued, will be required to further advance mad knowledges and user-led research. Crucially, it demonstrates how this approach can be both methodologically and conceptually rigorous. This novel work holds important insights for students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences; particularly those working in the areas of critical psychology, disability studies, Mad studies, feminist studies, critical race theory, and Queer theory.




Addressing Epistemic Injustice in Mental Health


Book Description

Epistemic injustice was conceptualized by Fricker as a form of social injustice, which occurs when people’s authority ‘as a knower’ is ignored, dismissed, or marginalized. It is attracting increasing interest in the mental health field because of the asymmetries of power between people using mental health services and mental health professionals. People experiencing mental health distress are particularly vulnerable to epistemic injustice as a consequence of deeply embedded social stigma, negative stereotyping, and assumed irrationality. This is amplified by other forms of stereotyping or structural discrimination, including racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Consequently, individual testimonies may be discounted as both irrational and unreliable. Epistemic injustice also operates systemically reflecting social and demographic characteristics, such a race, gender, sexuality or disability, or age.




The Routledge History of Madness and Mental Health


Book Description

The Routledge History of Madness and Mental Health explores the history and historiography of madness from the ancient and medieval worlds to the present day. Global in scope, it includes case studies from Africa, Asia, and South America as well as Europe and North America, drawing together the latest scholarship and source material in this growing field and allowing for fresh comparisons to be made across time and space. Thematically organised and written by leading academics, chapters discuss broad topics such as the representation of madness in literature and the visual arts, the material culture of madness, the perpetual difficulty of creating a classification system for madness and mental health, madness within life histories, the increased globalisation of knowledge and treatment practices, and the persistence of spiritual and supernatural conceptualisations of experiences associated with madness. This volume also examines the challenges involved in analysing primary sources in this area and how key themes such as class, gender, and race have influenced the treatment and diagnosis of madness throughout history. Chronologically and geographically wide-ranging, and providing a fascinating overview of the current state of the field, this is essential reading for all students of the history of madness, mental health, psychiatry, and medicine.