Editorial
Brenda A. LeFrançois
This special issue of Radical Psychology is comprised of texts based on
presentations given at the Madness, Citizenship & Social Justice: A
Human Rights Conference held at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver
from June 12-15, 2008. This conference brought together a lively
group of over 200 academics, survivors/service users, activists,
artists, researchers and mental health professionals.
Participants came from as far as New Zealand, Australia, the UK, South
Africa and the USA to join Canadian participants in addressing the
issues of civil liberties, recovery, ‘sanism’, discrimination and
oppression, amongst others. This original conference, organised
by Robert Menzies, included an inspired four days of not only paper
presentations but also art exhibitions, theatre and film presentations.
[1] The conference website can be viewed at
http://www.sfu.ca/madcitizenship-conference/
The first article “Theorizing Distress: Critical Reflections on
Bi-polar and Borderline”, written by Christina Martens, reviews and
critiques different theoretical understandings of distress, including
the bio-medical model, anti-psychiatry, critical psychiatry, social
constructionism and performativity. These understandings are
linked to the labels of “bi-polar” and “borderline” (the BPDs), along
with a political examination of the performance of citizenship and it’s
denial to those deemed both dependent and distressed.
In the second article “Stranger Neighbours”, Helen Douglas highlights
three stories of madness and resistance during the South African
apartheid. The interplay of the concepts of citizenship, social
justice, inclusion\exclusion and identity are considered within these
three narratives, along with an analysis of Levinas’ ethics of justice
for the Other. This context and analysis forms the backdrop for
an important application to the current ‘treatment’ of the ‘mad
neighbour’ in society.
The third article “Making Bipolar Britney: Proliferating Psychiatric
Diagnoses Through Tabloid Media”, written by Jijian Voronka, provides a
case study analysis of the media’s depiction of Britney Spears’
madness. The ways in which the medical model, as the dominant
discourse in ‘helping’ professions, is now being disseminated to the
general pubic in order to also dominate layperson understandings of
distress is considered. The use of pop culture as a medium to
ensure the targeting of a young and wide audience, with the media
drawing
specifically on knowledge from the ‘psy’ disciplines for the first
time, represents an alarming broadening of the power of psychiatry
within society. Moreover, this article demonstrates that
surveillance is ensured via the new ‘psy-media monitoring’, a term
coined by Voronka, of the stars madness.
In the fourth article “A ‘Patient-Centred’ Path Toward Ignoring Patient
Rights, Rob Wipond exposes the lack of attention paid to the civil
rights of Canadian mental health patients in the Kirby Report. The
report claims to recommend a more patient-centred approach to mental
health care however Wipond’s analysis demonstrates that the report
itself refuses to take a patient-centred approach. Within this
critical analysis of the Kirby report, the underlying assumptions and
biases that are antithetical not only to the civil rights of patients
but also to employing an empowering patient-centred approach to mental
health treatment and care are detailed.
Fifth, the article entitled “We All Go Astray”, written by Leon Redler,
an apprentice of RD Laing, re-looks at the core principles of the
Philadelphia Association as well as Levinas’ concept of the Other in
order to draw together an original and radical approach to
understanding and responding to madness.
Our cover art is part of Sue Clark-Wittenberg’s ad campaign to end
electroshock (ECT). We believe it provides a powerful image\text
that speaks volumes on the topic of disability rights, feminism and
anti-psychiatry in one brief glimpse. [2]
[1] The conference was hosted by the Simon Fraser University Institute
for the Humanities. Funding for this conference was generously
received from both the SFU Institute for the Humanities as well as from
the SSHRC program: Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences in
Canada. Dr. Robert Menzies, the J.S. Woodsworth Resident Scholar,
organised the conference.
[2] Sue Clark-Wittenberg is an antipsychiatry and anti-electroshock
activist & speaker who lives in Ottawa, Canada. She received
the Coalition Against Psychiatirc Assault (CAPA)'s award for
"Lifetime Antipsychiatry Activism" in September 2008. You can
read Sue's story at her webiste: suzyo.wordpress.com Sue is also the
Director of the International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (ICBE)
icbe.wordpress.com.