Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies

by Brenda A. LeFrançois

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 brings 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Disability, Psychology, Mental Illness, Mental Health, Philosophy, Politics

408 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2013

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

Throughout, I struggled with this book's anti-psychiatrization stance.

It's reacting a lot to the ongoing history of people being (involuntarily) institutionalized or similar -- which just isn't where I'm coming from... I kept thinking of friends with severe depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc. who experience themselves as having been really helped by medication. Yes, there is an unfortunate tendency in our medical system to not listen deeply to what people say is negatively impacting their lives, and a tendency throughout our culture to push away what makes us uncomfortable... but I don't think that the medical system has nothing to offer folks living with what we call mental illness.

Partly I just wanted a clearer acknowledgement of the position this book was coming from -- it took me until about 3/4 of the way through the book to actually put my finger on what the difference was in where we were coming from and why a lot of the pieces felt like they were just going past me.

I noped out for a significant period of time at "There are so many alternatives to community mental health care as it currently exists. If people could be socialized from an early age to be aware of, and take care of, themselves and each other, much of what is construed as mental illness would never come to pass in the first place. Good nutrition, exercise, sleep, yoga, meditation, tai chi, and/or countless other pursuits stemming from many different cultures (including those of our country's Aboriginal peoples) could replace psychiatric treatment, with better results, and improve the lives of those it has already harmed. So could various creative, intellectual, social, political, and other pursuits" (p. 155, from Iris Shimrat, "The Tragic Farce of 'Community Health Care'").

I wanted to nope out again at "Had her patient a real disease, my drug concerns wouldn't matter. Faced with an indisputable pathological fact, treating her patient as someone helpless in the face of an affliction makes sense---especially if there is an effective treatment. But since there are no psychiatric diseases, there are no treatments. The psychiatrist has to forget about the imaginary diseases that exist only in the theories of ideologues, stick to her guns about this, and insist that the patient has within himself the potential for change" (p. 213, Gordon Warme, "Removing Civil Rights") -- but I also wanted to finish the book.

Having read this book in pieces over 6 months, it's difficult for me to speak to it as a whole (especially since I've since returned it to the library after accidentally water damaging it). There were pieces that were really moving, and I definitely learned a lot (and reading Loud Hands afterward brought home to me some of how much a lot of the institutionalization etc. that is lamented in this book continues to happen even in the present-day with some populations), but I feel like I would only recommend selected pieces rather than the whole book -- which is a bummer because I was really excited about the book when I first found out about it.

[Cody Bivins-Starr · Rating 3 out of 5]

An inaugural text in the growing “Mad Studies” discipline branch of Disability Studies. A great survey of the many voices and histories that inform the movement. However, much of the discourse of Mad Studies seems trapped in forgoing robust analysis of the generation of systems and phenomenology for identity/intersectionality. Many of the articles spend most of the time building up “mad” as an identity, and a lot of ink is spilled over “coalition building” for Mad people (and what the proper language is).

The article by Louise Tam stuck out as a legitimate protest to a majority of the articles in the volume, challenging identity discourse as an easily co-opted framework. Rather, she posits the field should interrogate the way biopower is mobilized to operationalize diagnosis as a function of the state. In other words, her article seemed more interested in engaging in the mechanics of governance and the way “madness” is not a fixed category but used as a tool.

I think Tam places a finger on the pulse of my hesitancy with Mad Studies, but I would add to her critique a lack of attention given to madness as an experience (phenomenon) like the European Continental Philosophy of Psychiatry schools are doing currently. Their engagement resists the “personal is political” while claiming that the “private” experiences of madness DO entail enmeshed political realities without the need for identitarian framing.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh yeah. This is a tough, passionate, confronting, disturbing - pick that scab - kind of book. It places Mad Studies and psychiatry into a scholarly bucket and gives the resultant knowledge a good stir. Fine scholarship emerges in this collection, including history, women's studies, disability studies, law and public policy. But it is also potently confrontational. It rides the power of the word 'mad' and lashes out at readers so that we all confront our expectations.

I enjoyed each chapter. It is a fine, even and well crafted collection. But I want to celebrate one chapter that - frankly - had me in tears by the end of its first page. Please read Jennifer Poole and Jennifer Ward's “Breaking open the bone: Storying, Sanism, and Mad Grief. These fine researchers collected stories of 'mad grief' from the men and women who did not fit into the quiet, linear, organized, rational grief that is codified in our culture. It is a breathtaking chapter from an outstanding edited collection.

[Chet Taranowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

It certainly offers a provocative view of the mental illness business. I can't say I agreed with all of the opinions, but it is clear that there have been some abuses of people's rights in the name of psychiatry. However, I do feel the book "throws the baby out with the bathwater" as I think there have been advances in this field and that mental health intervention (even medications) can bring some relief from suffering. The book also ties the Mad consciousness movement, to larger views of oppression similar to Feminist and the Queer rights perspectives.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The publisher asked me to review this book. Follow the link to the review :)

http://prideinmadness.wordpress.com/2...