University of Toronto lecturer Bonnie Burstow discusses the key elements that distinguish the antipsychiatry perspective from mad, critical psychiatry, psych survivor and other perspectives on her new blog BizOMadness. Burstow agrees with Thomas Szasz that âmental illnessâ is âa literalized metaphorâ that does not accurately relate to dire emotional distress. âBy contrast, the various treatments of psychiatry (e.g., the drugs, electroshock) have been demonstrated to create illness. It is this reality that is the bedrock of antipsychiatry.â That’s why antipsychiatry thinkers don’t want to âimproveâ psychiatry, writes Burstow. âBecause you only seek to improve something you judge as having some legitimacyânot something which you contend has none.â
Antipsychiatry thinkers, writes Burstow, therefore also see institutional psychiatry as an âincarceral projectâ that is âintrinsically about power-over, the bodily surveillance and control of âotheredâ populations (especially women, the racialized, the poor, gay and transgender, the very young, the very old).â
On Antipsychiatry (BizOMadness, July 5, 2014)