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Unsettled: Discourse, Practice, Context, And Collective Identity Among Mad People in the United States: 1970-1999
Unsettled is the full text (including extensive notes) of one of the very few PhD dissertations written about the movement of psychiatric consumers, survivors, and ex-patients to create alternatives to traditional psychiatric treatment.
Completed at York University (Toronto) in 2011, "Unsettled" is the result of years of careful analysis of documents written, in vast majority, by the members of this movement, themselves. The dissertation traces the history of the movement from the 1970’s to the end of the 20th century, from its birth as a radical, often anti-psychiatric, effort to a growing emphasis on the creation of alternative settings which more often acknowledged intrinsic emotional suffering.
Both the radical and the reformist/alternativist wings of the movement persisted to the end of the century. While they had their differences, both emphasized respect for human rights, the need for humane options, and the recasting of identity away from the “helpless patient” and towards lives of greater self-determination, creativity, and emotional health and well-being.
While the “mad movement” has been woefully understudied in academia, and while only a modicum of acknowledgement of it exists in the mental health system in North America, the movement has nevertheless had a significant influence on psychiatric and mental health discourse. This remains true even though an overemphasis on medicalized understandings and professionalized treatments of emotional distress persists.
Completed at York University (Toronto) in 2011, "Unsettled" is the result of years of careful analysis of documents written, in vast majority, by the members of this movement, themselves. The dissertation traces the history of the movement from the 1970’s to the end of the 20th century, from its birth as a radical, often anti-psychiatric, effort to a growing emphasis on the creation of alternative settings which more often acknowledged intrinsic emotional suffering.
Both the radical and the reformist/alternativist wings of the movement persisted to the end of the century. While they had their differences, both emphasized respect for human rights, the need for humane options, and the recasting of identity away from the “helpless patient” and towards lives of greater self-determination, creativity, and emotional health and well-being.
While the “mad movement” has been woefully understudied in academia, and while only a modicum of acknowledgement of it exists in the mental health system in North America, the movement has nevertheless had a significant influence on psychiatric and mental health discourse. This remains true even though an overemphasis on medicalized understandings and professionalized treatments of emotional distress persists.
694 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 3, 2015
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