Mad Matters, a Canadian collection of writings by psychiatric survivors, anti-psychiatry activists, academics (including MIA Blogger Bonnie Burstow) and others who take critical approaches to “mental health” issues has been hailed in Britain’s The Guardian for bringing “a voice of sanity to psychiatry.”
“Such fresh thinking is needed more than ever in the UK,” writes Beresford. “(T)he over-reliance on drug treatment and the reduction of ‘talking therapies’ to short-term cognitive behavioural therapy, offers minimal hope for the future. The big traditional mental health charities are hardly an effective voice to challenge the failings of current policy, as they are closely tied into government by service provider contracts.”
Beresford writes that Mad Studies “is now being picked up worldwide and has arrived in the UK with the first ever programme at the International Disability Studies conference at Lancaster University earlier this year.”
Mad studies brings a voice of sanity to psychiatry (The Guardian, October 7, 2014)
Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies (Canadian Scholars Press)
MIA Editor’s Note: MIA News Editor Rob Wipond contributed a chapter to Mad Matters.
