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Searching for a Rose Garden: challenging psychiatry, fostering Mad Studies

Authors:
  • Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin

Abstract

Searching for a Rose Garden is an incisive critique of all that is unhelpful about sanestream understandings of and responses to mental distress. Drawing on world-wide survivor activism and scholarship, it explores the toxicity of psychiatry and the co-option and corruption of survivor knowledge and practice by the mainstream. Chapters on survivor research and theory reveal the constant battle to establish and maintain a safe space for experiential knowledge within academia and beyond. Other chapters explore how survivor-developed projects and practices are cultivating a wealth of bright blooms in the most hostile of environments, providing an important vision for the future. Referencing Joanne Greenberg’s book I Never Promised you a Rose Garden, this collection demonstrates the challenge, determination and successes of the authors in working towards a paradigm shift in the understanding of madness and distress. This landmark text is essential reading in the emerging field of Mad Studies. See more at: http://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/searching-for-a-rose-garden-1/#.VuAahV6S_ng
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... The "frame" is enlarged by foregrounding the varied epistemologies of mad folk when so many other disciplines forgo doing so. Mad Studies tends to be collocated inside and outside the academy, inclusive of the mad community, and never without it (Russo & Sweeney, 2016). Lastly, Mad Studies is a "force for critical teaching and learning" (Menzies et al., 2013, p. 21), where dedicated "activist" academics inveigh against the bio-psychiatric practices entrenched in campus culture (Kunzel, 2017). ...
... In total, 27 monographs and edited collections, each positing a critical perspective on mental health, were listed in the resource. However, a search of each book's listing on their respective publisher's website found less than half had "Mad Studies" in its title, abstract, keywords, or (Spandler et al., 2015); Searching for a Rose Garden: Challenging Psychiatry, Fostering Mad Studies (Russo & Sweeney, 2016); Interrogating psychiatric narratives of madness: Documented lives (Daley & Pilling, 2021); Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health (Donaldson, 2018); and The Routledge International Handbook of Mad Studies (Beresford & Russo, 2021), met the search criteria. To broaden the sample, I searched Google Scholar using Mad Studies as my principal search term, which produced two additional books asserting a Mad Studies focus: Queer and trans madness: Struggles for social justice (Pilling, 2022) and Madness and the demand for recognition: A philosophical inquiry into identity and mental health activism (Rashed, 2019). ...
... However, this infiltration has continued piecemeal in the US academy (Aho et al., 2017). This is not from lack of effort as many academics have been toiling in the trenches for some time, carving out nooks of mad space in education (Russo & Sweeney, 2016). Admirably, they do this while contending against the neoliberal, "new managerialism" of ever-corporatizing universities resisting the fusion of madness into existing catalogs of course offerings (Church, 2015). ...
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Students diagnosed with mental illness are progressively composing the makeup of our universities’ student bodies. With more “mad” students making their way into the academy, this has encouraged many in Mad Studies to consider the challenges they confront in pursuing post-secondary studies. The purpose of this structured literature review of the Mad Studies canon is to tease out themes apropos to the education of adults through a critical pedagogy lens. Themal categories were organized around: Mad Studies course development and curriculum, popular culture and arts-based education, contesting the university seeped in sanism, surveilling mad bodies/minds, the university demands resilience, the politics of course instruction/teaching, mad disclosures, educational policy, and threat and risk management. This paper concludes by discussing the glaring voids in the literature and recommendations for future research.
... En este contexto, la revisión y revalorización de la locura en las últimas décadas han implicado transformaciones en las narrativas sobre quiénes son los productores de conocimiento legítimos y autorizados en salud mental (Gorman & LeFrançois, 2017;Rashed, 2023). Al respecto, los Estudios Locos han puesto en cuestión las normas y las prácticas institucionalizadas en este ámbito, sosteniendo una renovación de la praxis investigativa desde la experiencia de la locura (LeFrançois et al., 2013;Russo & Sweeney, 2016). Esta perspectiva plantea la importancia de explorar los saberes y las acciones que han surgido del movimiento loco a nivel global, expresando una nueva voz radical en los entornos académicos (Beresford & Russo, 2021). ...
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El presente artículo indaga en las contribuciones de la psicología social crítica y los Estudios Locos para pensar las relaciones de poder e interrogar los mecanismos de dominación en el campo de la salud mental. Al establecer una postura crítica y una voluntad comprometida en la producción de conocimientos, la articulación de estas dos escuelas de pensamiento permite cuestionar las asimetrías de poder en los procesos de investigación y sostener nuevas formas de comprender la locura en nuestro continente. Desde una perspectiva latinoamericana, se plantea difuminar las fronteras disciplinarias, desarrollar metodologías alternativas y favorecer las intersecciones y alianzas con luchas y movimientos sociales. En torno a estas elaboraciones, se propone la investigación activista como otra manera de generar saberes con las comunidades locas e impulsar procesos de reconstrucción epistémica y justicia emancipatoria en la salud mental contemporánea.
... Nonetheless, embracing Madness can be a way of reclaiming identity (Russo, 2001(Russo, , 2016 and further offers a mechanism for politicization. Spandler and Poursanidou (2019) observed that Mad Studies aims to unsettle negative associations with the term "Mad" and also acts to reclaim and politicize it, in alignment with the reclamation and politicization of terms such as "Queer," "Fat," and "Crip." ...
Article
This paper explores my active suppression of my bipolar identity as a case of “testimonial smothering” (Dotson, 2011) in the academy. Dotson theorizes testimonial smothering as a distinctly epistemic injustice. I explicate concepts of epistemic injustice—both testimonial and hermeneutical injustice (Fricker, 2007)—and testimonial smothering and argue that the pervasive nature of stereotypes and overarching discourses about Madness in society may lead a person who identifies as Mad to smother their identity. Following a discussion of the ways that people who identify as Mad are subject to epistemic injustice that wrongs them in their capacity as knowers, I point to the necessity of being understood as a “knower” in academia. Subsequently, I argue that having to “pass” as sane constitutes epistemic violence and further explore the distinctly hermeneutical dimensions of the injustice that shapes the often invisibility of Mad people in the academy. Discussion about the complexities of decisions about passing and disclosure follows. I ultimately assert that visibility and representation of Mad people and the recognition of the epistemic value of Mad perspectives are crucial to moving forward.
... La position de chercheuse concernée que j'ai adoptée dans ce papier est inspirée du travail de Diana Rose (20), et plus largement des travaux des survivor research (35,36). Face à ces enjeux de pouvoir dans la recherche, la solution proposée a été celle des recherches directement menées par les personnes concernées, l'argument épistémique étant qu'une prise de pouvoir par les personnes concernées participe à promouvoir le processus participatif à l'ensemble des étapes de la recherche. ...
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Les recherches participatives ont acquis une visibilité récente qui alimente le remaniement de leurs cadres épistémiques. Les défis auxquels elles sont confrontées permettent d’étudier les enjeux de pouvoir qui régissent les systèmes de recherche. Partant de cette opportunité, ce papier propose de discuter les liens entre recherche en santé, recherches participatives et contexte poli‑ tique. Menée depuis une position de chercheuse concernée inspirée des travaux des survivor research, l’analyse du contexte s’appuie sur une approche critique de la participation à deux recherches participatives menées en collaboration avec l’Orga‑ nisation mondiale de la santé. La prise en compte du contexte est abordée sous l’angle des conditions, objectifs et enjeux politiques dans lesquels se construisent les recherches partici‑ patives. L’autrice démontre que les défis matériels, éthiques ou méthodologiques des recherches participatives ne participent pas tant à des questions épistémiques qu’au rôle qu’occupe la recherche comme pratique sociale. En abstrayant ces enjeux politiques derrière des questions épistémiques, la recherche participe à l’assujettissement des savoirs, au péril des commu‑ nautés impliquées. La prise en compte des enjeux de pouvoir sociaux et au sein de la recherche appelle le développement de recherches directement menées par les personnes concernées.
... Apart from some ethnographic accounts of mad people's activism (Church 1995;Logan and Karter 2022;Morrison 2005;Nabbali 2013;Spandler 2006), limited attention has been paid to mad people's organising in sociological literature and social movement studies. 7 Madidentified researchers (also known as 'survivor researchers') have begun to produce their own sociological knowledge and theorising, which builds on knowledge generated through the actions and organising of mad people (Burstow, LeFrançois, and Diamond 2014;LeFrançois, Menzies, and Reaume 2013;Russo and Sweeney 2016;Staddon 2013;Sweeney et al. 2009). Taking an approach that centres mad people's knowledge-practices aspires to resist sanist assumptions about mad students as too vulnerable, unstable or incapable of collectively producing knowledge, critiques or theories (Landry 2017;Voronka and LeFrançois 2022). ...
Article
How might those of us located within post-secondary institutions support students who have experience of the mental health system in a meaningful way? Drawing on scholarship in social movement studies and a case study in Ontario, Canada, I distinguish between the prevailing mental health and wellness offerings of educational institutions and distinct forms of grassroots organising led by and for mad-identified students. This paper reflects on my past engagement with mad student intra-university organising in Ontario. Sifting through archival materials, personal writing and correspondence, I contemplate how my involvement as a past organiser in a radical student-run peer support and advocacy group has shaped and informed my scholarship within the field of Mad Studies. Connections are made between the activist knowledge-practices fostered within mad student groups and the growth of Mad Studies in Canada. Building from social movement studies, I argue for supporting and engaging in activism alongside politicised students who are organising on campuses to confront inequitable social relations, on their own terms. Doing so requires critically unpacking white dominant hegemonic ways of thinking about what constitutes ‘mental health and wellness’ from a student perspective.
... Texts have emerged, for example, from Ghana, India, Kenya, with more in progress. (Nabbali, 2013;Davar, 2016;Sharma, 2022). ...
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In recent years, there has been a growing and high-profile movement for ‘global mental health’. This has been framed in ‘psych system’ terms and had a particular focus on what has come to be called the ‘Global South’ or ‘low and middle-income countries’. However, an emerging ‘Mad Studies’ new social movement has also developed as a key challenge to such globalising pressures. This development, however, has itself both being impeded by some of the disempowering foundations of a global mental health approach, as well as coming in for criticism for itself perpetuating some of the same problems as the latter. At the same time, we are also beginning to see it and related concepts like the UNCRPD being given new life and meaning by Global South activists as well as Global North activists. Given such contradictions and complexities, the aim of this paper is to offer an analysis and explore ways forward consistent with decolonizing global mental health and addressing madness and distress more helpfully globally, through a Mad Studies lens.
Article
Menschen mit psychischen Erkrankungen gehören zu einer Personengruppe, die nicht nur in der Allgemeinbevölkerung, sondern auch im Gesundheits- und Sozialsystem einem erhöhten Risiko für Stigmatisierung ausgesetzt ist. Trotz zahlreicher sozialpolitischer Reformprozesse durch die UN-Behindertenrechtskonvention findet eine aktive Einbeziehung von Menschen mit psychischen Erkrankungen in der Praxis und Politik nur unzureichend statt. Im Rahmen eines Beitrages für die Zeitschrift FORUM Sozialarbeit + Gesundheit stellen Frank Hammerschmidt und Karsten Giertz verschiedene Initiativen des Landesverbandes Sozialpsychiatrie Mecklenburg-Vorpommern e.V. und des Vereins EX-IN Mecklenburg-Vorpommern e.V. vor, die bestehende Barrieren bei der Umsetzung von partizipativen Unterstützungsformen abbauen und die Implementierung von Angeboten des Peer Supportes in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern fördern.
Article
During the last decades of the 20th century, large-scale psychiatric institutions were dismantled. This “deinstitutionalization” was connected to efforts to end institutional violence. Former inmates, however, had institutional violence inscribed into their bodies and souls. This article is written by one of them, 87-year-old Swedish psychiatry survivor, Gunnel Bergstrand, together with researcher Elisabeth Punzi. They explore how Gunnel’s stay at a dismantled Swedish psychiatric institution in 1956 affected her whole life and how she struggled to find a listener. We frame our work in a life story perspective and in the recently developed discipline of Mad studies, which challenges psychiatric terminologies and interventions and reclaims expertise based on the knowledge of those with lived experiences, past and present.
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