PSYCHIATRIC OPPRESSION IN WOMEN?S LIVES IBD

Sinopsi

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of womenâÇÖs experiences within mental health services, demonstrating the need for a radical paradigm shift in how womenâÇÖs distress and experiences are understood. Drawing on extensive fieldwork on coercive mental health treatment, including interviews, participatory action research, arts-based research, and public sociology, the book centres the knowledge, skills, and creativity of psychiatrised women.Informed by intersectional feminism and critical mental health theory, the book explores the interlocking oppressions of psychiatric harm and patriarchal power, alongside womenâÇÖs survivorship and resistances. Areas covered include the pathologisation of womenâÇÖs emotions within mental health services, violence and deprivations in involuntary treatment, the surveillance of mothering, and social exclusions arisingáfrom psychiatric diagnoses.áThe book highlights the abilityáof collective and creative research processes to move beyond the task of documenting psychiatric harm, towards imagining rich alternatives to biomedical, therapeutic, and carceral practices in mental health. It offers a critique of the notions of âÇÖbenevolenceâÇÖ and âÇÖexpertiseâÇÖ, which are commonly used to justify psychiatric coercion. It will appeal to students and scholars working across the fields of critical mental health, sociology, social work, psychiatry, mental health nursing and gender studies.Emma Tserisáis senior lecturer in Social Work and Policy Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia, researching feminist and critical mental health theory. She is the author ofáTrauma, WomenâÇÖs Mental Health and Social Justice: Pitfalls and Possibilitiesá(2019) and co-author ofáUsing Social Research for Social Justiceá(2023).Scarlett Franksáis a survivor researcher from the University of Sydney, Australia, who also serves on the Survivor College of the National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse, the board of directors of the Grace Tame Foundation, and the Advisory Panel of the NSW Office of the Anti-Slavery Commissioner.áEva Bright Hartáis a feminist survivor researcher from the University of Sydney, Australia. She is aásenior social worker and public health professional from a rural area. Eva is also known as a mother,áteacher, gardener, cook, author, activist and artist.áAs a survivor of psychiatric and gendered violence Eva uses a protective pseudonym so she can contribute without the fear of further discrimination, disablement and involuntary psychiatric treatment for herself and her family. Eva means 'living one'.á