There is growing international resistance to the oppressiveness of psychiatry. While previous studies have critiqued psychiatry, Psychiatry Disrupted goes beyond theorizing what is wrong with it to theorizing how we might stop it.

Introducing readers to the arguments and rationale for opposing psychiatry, the book combines perspectives from anti-psychiatry and critical psychiatry activism, mad activism, antiracist, critical, and radical disability studies, as well as feminist, Marxist, and anarchist thought. The editors and contributors are activists and academics - adult education and social work professors, psychologists, prominent leaders in the psychiatric survivor movement, and artists - from across Canada, England, and the United States. From chapters discussing feminist opposition to the medicalization of human experience, to the links between psychiatry and neo-liberalism, to internal tensions within the various movements and different identities from which people organize, the collection theorizes psychiatry while contributing to a range of scholarship and presenting a comprehensive overview of resistance to psychiatry in the academy and in the community.

Contributors include Simon Adam (University of Toronto), Rosemary Barnes University of Toronto, Peter Beresford (Brunel University), Bonnie Burstow (University of Toronto), Chris Chapman (York University), Mark Cresswell (Durham University), Shaindl Diamond (York University), Chava Finkler (Memorial University), Ambrose Kirby (therapist in private practice, Brenda A. LeFrançois (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Mick McKeown (University of Central Lancashire), Robert Menzies (Simon Fraser University), China Mills (Oxford University), Tina Minkowitz (World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry), Ian Parker (University of Leicester), Susan Schellenberg, Helen Spandler (University of Central Lancashire), and AJ Withers (York University).

A courageous anthology, Psychiatry Disrupted is a timely work that asks compelling activist questions that no other book in the field touches.

A Jew born in north end Winnipeg toward the end of World War Two, Bonnie Burstow is an activist, a feminist psychotherapist, a trauma specialist, a videographer, an academic, and a prolific author. Bonnie has worked for decades as an ally in the struggles of marginalized populations and has received numerous awards, including the City of Toronto’s Constance E. Hamilton Award. Her most well-known book—Radical Feminist Therapy—is a recognized classic. She is currently a faculty member in the Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

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Brenda LeFrançois is a university research professor in the School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland. With twenty-five years of experience as an academic, Dr. LeFrançois’ teaching has focused primarily on social work theory and praxis, critical mental health and qualitative research methodologies. Likewise, their activist scholarship is theory-infused and focuses on psychiatrization, sanism and anti-sanist praxis, from mad studies, anarchist and critical childhood studies perspectives. They have published widely on these and related topics.

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Shaindl Diamond is a community activist and psychologist in Toronto, Ontario.

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