Books

Marie Brown and Marilyn Charles have assembled a book that bridges different perspectives and disciplines to contextualize and complicate women’s experiences of psychosis through culture, the body, spirituality, and psychiatry. Reading Women and Psychosis itself becomes a polyphonic experience that changes how we understand what psychosis is, how it has been construed, and for women, with what consequences. 

— Annie Rogers, PhD, Hampshire College, author of Incandescent Alphabets: Psychosis and the Enigma of Language

Women & Psychosis offers an inspiring example of how lived experience, clinical insight, and critical theory can be woven together to illuminate a complex set of psychological issues. By challenging monolithic thinking about madness – whether by psychiatrists, patients, or feminist scholars – the authors are able to explore a much greater diversity of women's experiences. A major contribution!

— Gail A. Hornstein, PhD, Mount Holyoke College and author of Agnes's Jacket: A Psychologist's Search for the Meanings of Madness

This earnest and scholarly book is a wonderful invitation to clinicians of all spiritual leanings and people with personal experiences of psychosis to engage in a respectful dialogue about the meaning of extreme states of mind. Without this dialogue all parties who care about the meanings expressed in psychosis risk talking at each other rather than to each other, which would be a great loss for everyone. This book encourages an essential conversation among stakeholders, clinical and personal, that examines the language and ideas we use to speak about psychosis, an experience that has deep roots in our shared humanity.

— Michael Garrett, MD, SUNY Downstate, author Psychotherapy for Psychosis Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychodynamic Treatment

In this excellent and timely book, philosophically and spiritually minded clinicians move beyond critique to develop imaginative and generative possibilities for understanding mental difference without falling into overused, and for many deeply problematic, pathologizing frames. It’s a welcome addition! 

— Bradley Lewis, MD, PhD, New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study

Women and the Psychosocial Construction of Madness focuses on the question of madness as it is experienced by women within gendered sociopolitical contexts. Contributors to this edited collection engage with a diverse range of topics, including BIPOC women's experiences of psychosis, psychosis in transwomen, sexual trauma and psychosis, the doctor-patient relationship, and women's experiences of mental health treatment and recovery. Chapters span the disciplines of psychoanalysis, sociology, women's studies, critical theory, and madness studies.

We must return to psychosis and its meaning systems again and again with every generation to understand the power it holds to oppress or illuminate the subjectivity of women who have supposedly gone mad. In Women and the Psychosocial Construction of Madness Marie Brown and Marilyn Charles have welcomed us to hear their voices once more and to listen with new ears.

—  Aurélie Athan, PhD, Teachers College, Columbia University, co-founder Women, Gender, & Sexuality Project

Con excesiva frecuencia, las experiencias de las personas consideradas «locas», en particular las mujeres, han sido colonizadas o explicadas por otros, ya sea por la teoría o por la ciencia. Aquello que constituye el «saber» o la «verdad» está dictado por quienes poseen poder institucional. De allí que en este libro se busque desestabilizar adrede los textos académicos tradicionales de un modo que honre las experiencias femeninas, subjetivas y marginadas, de lo que, comúnmente, recibe el nombre de «psicosis». La obra se divide en cuatro partes: «Las mujeres y la psicosis en el arte y la cultura»; «Las mujeres, la psicosis y el cuerpo»; «Las mujeres, la psicosis y la espiritualidad» y «Perspectivas psiquiátricas sobre las mujeres y la psicosis». Dentro de cada sección, se incluyen diversos enfoques epistemológicos. Algunos capítulos son teóricos mientras que otros son científicos, históricos o narran experiencias en primera persona. En este recorrido se busca comprender no solo la interacción de dos identidades marginadas, aquellas consideradas «psicóticas» y las mujeres, sino también luchar contra esta doble marginación y sus raíces discriminatorias. La originalidad de este libro radica en su enfoque multidisciplinario, tanto en el contenido como en la forma. 

Brown, M., Pagdon, S. & Jones, N. (editors). 2022. Rethink Negative Symptoms. V. 1. accessible at www.rethinkpsychosis.weebly.com

Bien, C. & Brown, M. (2021). Psychosis & Psychoanalysis. Division Review. No. 23.