Bonnie Burstow

"This is an interesting book. It may be useful for those who have not followed the debate on the experience of women in psychiatric services. It provides useful information on ways of working with more disturbed women. These are women whom psychiatric services often avoid or at least with whom they do little constructive work. The emphasis on offering therapy to these women instead of a bed in an institution was refreshing." --Andrea Bennett in Clinical Psychology Forum How can counselors and clinicians help empower women in a sexist, racist, and homophobic society? How can they help women reclaim their bodies? Or repair their violated bond with womenkind? Taking feminist therapy one step further, this enlightening volume focuses on a central problem in our society--violence against women--and explores practical, feminist ways of working with women's responses to it: depression, cutting, splitting, troubled eating, and protest. Radical Feminist Therapy explores issues that are usually either omitted or pathologized in generalist feminist counseling texts such as women battered by their pimps, women who self-mutilate, and psychiatrized women. Other topics covered are working with lesbians; American Indian, African American, Jewish, and immigrant women; women with disabilities; working with heterosexual couples; sexual violation by therapists; and working with suicidal clients. A list of recommended readings follows each chapter. Radical Feminist Therapy addresses the needs of both students and practitioners in the areas of psychology, counseling, social work, and women's studies who desire a comprehensive, enlightening text they will refer to again and again. "Burstow's book should prove very useful as a resource for practitioners in a wide variety of areas dealing with violence against women. . . . The first part of the book presents the theoretical foundations; the remaining 12 chapters integrate theory and practice. Written from a well-articulated radical feminist position, the text is grounded in structuralist theory that situates problems in living within the systematic oppressions of classism, sexism, and racism. Respect for women and for their right to make their own decisions in therapy permeates the text." --Choice "This book fills a gap in the literature addressed by no other publication I have seen. There are numerous theoretical books on feminist counseling or therapy. But I have seen nothing which moves from theory to clear, practical suggestions on what to do and how to do it when working with women on different problems. Bonnie begins by presenting a clear feminist framework in which she sees violence against women in our society as the central problem in all women's lives. She explains how this core issue plays itself out in different areas of women's lives and how it is central to the personal problems women struggle with. She then goes on to give practical, concrete suggestions about how to actually work with women in therapy. She warns readers of common pitfalls and how to avoid them. It is an extremely cohesive and useful piece of work." --Linda Advokaat, Feminist Counselor, Sessional Instructor, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada "As a presentation of theory translated into casework, this is the best I have seen in its field--a deft integration of politics and philosophy, made relevant and workable in the chosen context." --Counselling

Working in the Context of Violence

Radical Feminist Therapy

With an emphasis on violence against women and on women's responses to it - such as depression, splitting and eating disturbances - this volume furthers the radicalization of feminist therapy. It serves as a comprehensive introduction for trainees and as an ongoing resource for social service workers and therapists. Providing detailed and grounded guidance, the author examines feminist approaches to working with women and discusses issues often omitted or pathologized in general feminist counselling texts, including prostitutes battered by pimps and self-mutilation. She explores such central questions as how women can empower themselves in a sexist society; what forms internalized oppression takes and how clients can be hel

A Counterhegemonic Dialogue

The Revolt Against Psychiatry

Brenda A. LeFrançois

Shaindl Diamond

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. LeFrançois (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.

Theorizing Resistance and Crafting the (R)evolution

Psychiatry Disrupted

Psychiatry and the Business of Madness deconstructs psychiatric discourse and practice, exposes the self-interest at the core of the psychiatric/psychopharmacological enterprise, and demonstrates that psychiatry is epistemologically and ethically irredeemable. Burstow's medical and historical research and in-depth interviews demonstrate that the paradigm is untenable, that psychiatry is pseudo-medicine, that the "treatments" do not "correct" disorders but cause them. Burstow fundamentally challenges our right to incarcerate or otherwise subdue those we find distressing. She invites the reader to rethink how society addresses these problems, and gives concrete suggestions for societal transformation, with "services" grounded in the community. A compelling piece of scholarship, impeccable in its logic, unwavering in its moral commitment, and revolutionary in its implications.

An Ethical and Epistemological Accounting

Psychiatry and the Business of Madness

Provides a provocative argument against conventional study, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of "mental illness."

Theorizing Resistance and Crafting the (r)evolution

Fiction. Jewish Studies. Embedded in Canadian and world history, and set in downtown Toronto between 1947 and the turn of the century, THE HOUSE ON LIPPINCOTT is a Jewish family saga which weaves together family caring, Holocaust trauma, abuse, aging, betrayal, anti-Semitism, resistance, and celebration, while introducing vital new characters to the Canadian landscape. There is brilliant feminist scholar and thinker, Miriam Himmelfarb, from whose perspective the story unfolds, her parents--Rachael and Daniel--both Holocaust survivors and activists, mysterious Uncle Yacov, and sisters Sondra and Esther. As children of survivors, early on, Miriam and her sisters make a decision which is to haunt them. A woman with heart, the aging Rachael presents her family with yet another harrowing choice. Compelling, passionate, touching. Long buried secrets come to light. Throughout, this novel is engrossing, passionate, captivating. Grounded in the language and conundrums of a Jewish immigrant family, it has the appeal of any novel embedded in a specific culture. At the same time, it extends beyond that culture, and indeed, beyond the Holocaust, bringing us face-to-face with the human condition: our ability to create joy and meaning even under dire circumstances, human suffering, growing up, responsibility, love, betrayal, family ties, the realities of growing old, death and the vulnerability of the human soul.

A Novel

The House on Lippincott

Fiction. LGBTQIA Studies. Jewish Studies. Women's Studies.This novel traces the life experiences of a once highly successful woman who falls prey to electroshock and subsequently struggles to piece back together her life. Naomi suffers enormous memory loss; additionally, an estrangement from her family of origin that she has no way to wrap her mind around. The novel begins with her wandering the corridor of St. Patricks-St. Andrews Mental Health Centre (St. Pukes) faced with the seemingly impossible challenge of coming to terms with the damage done her, as well as uncovering the hidden details of her life. It moves back and forth between a relatively happy childhood in the legendary north-end Winnipeg of the mid-1900s and post- ECT adulthood in Toronto. An exceptionally kind man named Ger who befriends Naomi comes to suspect that important pieces of the puzzle of what befell her lurk beneath the surface of writing in a binder of hers, which comes to be known as Black Binder Number Three. What Naomi progressively comes to do, often with Ger's help and just as often with the help of a very different and eerily similar sister named Rose, is find ways to do justice to her life and to the various people in it. Filled with a vast array of colourful and insightful characters from a variety of communities--Toronto's Kensington Market of the 1970s, the 1970's trans community, north-end Winnipeg Jewry, and the ingenious and frequently hilarious mad community--this novel sensitizes us to the horror of electroshock, takes us to new levels in our understanding of what it means to be human, and, in the process, leads us to question the very concept of normalcy.

The Other Mrs. Smith

A real eye-opener, this riveting anti/critical psychiatry book is comprised of original cutting-edge dialogues between Burstow (an antipsychiatry theorist and activist) and other leaders in the “revolt against psychiatry,” including radical practitioners, lawyers, reporters, activists, psychiatric survivors, academics, family members, and artists. People in dialogue with the author include Indigenous leader Roland Chrisjohn, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, survivor Lauren Tenney, and scholar China Mills. The single biggest focus/tension in the book is a psychiatry abolition position versus a critical psychiatry (or reformist) position. In the scope of this project, Burstow considers the ways racism, genocide, Indigeneity, sexism, media bias, madness, neurodiversity, and strategic activism are intertwined with critical and antipsychiatry.

Bonnie Burstow

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