Liberatory Psychiatry
Philosophy, Politics and Mental Health

Confronts the psychological impact of social changes, and explores the liberatory potential of psychiatry.

Carl I. Cohen (Edited by), Sami Timimi (Edited by)

9780521689816, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 April 2008

306 pages, 5 b/w illus. 5 tables
24.5 x 17.5 x 1.5 cm, 0.64 kg

'This book is not about consensus and answers; it is about throwing down the gauntlet and kickstarting debate. It is the collective voice of mental health professionals, faced with dilemmas and responsibilities, who challenge their own practice, with sensitivity, sincerity and above all humanism. This reviewer thoroughly recommends it.' Psychological Medicine

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Clinical psychology [MMJ], Psychiatry [MMH]