Liberatory Psychiatry: Philosophy, Politics and Mental Health

Psychiatry can help free persons from social, physical and psychological oppression, and it can assist persons to lead free self-directed lives. And, because social realities impact on mental well-being, psychiatry has a critical role to play in social struggles that further liberation. These are the basic foundations of liberatory psychiatry. In recent years, dramatic transformations in social and political structures worldwide have increased the problems of domination, alienation, consumerism, class, gender, religion, race and ethnicity. Confronting the psychological impact of these changes, and exploring new ideas to help develop the liberatory potential of psychiatry, this book should be read by mental health practitioners from the widest range of disciplines and those interested in social theory and political science.

• Defines a new role for psychiatry • Sets an agenda embracing social and political factors • International in outlook and holistic in coverage

Introduction. Carl I. Cohen and Sami B. Timimi; 1. Working towards a liberatory psychiatry? Radicalizing the science of human psychology and behaviour Carl I. Cohen; 2. Power, freedom and mental health: a postpsychiatry perspective Philip Thomas and Pat Bracken; 3. Challenging risk: a critique of defensive practice Duncan Double; 4. Democracy in psychiatry: or why psychiatry needs a new constitution Bradley Lewis; 5. German critical psychology as emancipatory psychology Charles W. Tolman; 6. Psychopolitical validity in the helping professions: applications to research, interventions, case conceptualization and therapy Isaac Prilleltensky, Ora Prilleltensky and Courte W. Voorhees; 7. Class exploitation and psychiatric disorders: from status syndrome to capitalist syndrome Carles Muntaner, Haejoo Chung, Carme Borrell and Joan Benach; 8. Ecological. Individual. Ecological? Moving public health psychiatry into a new era Kwame McKenzie; 9. Children’s mental health and the global market: an ecological analysis Sami B. Timimi; 10. Postcolonial psychiatry: the Empire strikes back? Or, the untapped promise of multiculturalism Begum Maitra; 11. A new psychiatry for a new world: postcolonialism, postmodernism, and the integration of premodern thought into psychiatry Amjad Hindi, Ramotse Saunders and Ipsit Vahia; 12. Neoliberalism and biopsychiatry: a marriage of convenience Joanna Moncrieff; 13. Psychoanalysis and social change: the Latin American experience Astrid Rusquellas; 14. A new psychiatry? Carl I. Cohen, Sami B. Timimi and Kenneth S. Thompson.