Overview

This book offers a comprehensive Marxist critique of the business of mental health, demonstrating how the prerogatives of neoliberal capitalism for productive, self-governing citizens have allowed the discourse on mental illness to expand beyond the psychiatric institution into many previously untouched areas of public and private life including the home, school and the workplace. Through historical and contemporary analysis of psy-professional knowledge-claims and practices, Bruce Cohen shows how the extension of psychiatric authority can only be fully comprehended through the systematic theorising of power relations within capitalist society. From schizophrenia and hysteria to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, from spinning chairs and lobotomies to shock treatment and antidepressants, from the incarceration of working class women in the nineteenth century to the torture of prisoners of the ‘war on terror’ in the twenty-first, PsychiatricHegemony is an uncompromising account of mental health ideology in neoliberal society.

Full Product Details

Author:   Bruce M. Z. Cohen
Publisher:   Palgrave Macmillan
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
Edition:   1st ed. 2016
Dimensions:   Width: 14.80cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 21.00cm
Weight:   4.401kg
ISBN:  

9781137460509

ISBN 10:   1137460504
Pages:   241
Publication Date:   02 December 2016
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: Thinking Critically about Mental Illness.- Chapter 2 Marxist Theory and Mental Illness: A Critique of Political Economy.- Chapter 3 Psychiatric Hegemony: Mental illness in Neoliberal Society.- Chapter 4 Work: Enforcing Compliance.- Chapter 5 Youth: Medicalising Deviance.- Chapter 6 Women: Reproducing Patriarchal Relations.- Chapter 7 Resistance: Pathologising Dissent.- Chapter 8 Conclusion: Challenging the Psychiatric Hegemon.- Chapter Appendix 1: Methodology for Textual Analysis of the DSMs.- Chapter Appendix 2: Youth-Related Diagnostic Categories in the DSM, 1952–2013.- Chapter Appendix 3: ‘Feminised’ Diagnostic Categories in the DSM, 1952–2013.

Reviews

In Psychiatric Hegemony, Bruce Cohen offers a critical analysis of the mental health system ... . Cohen joins with other voices in calling for a system that provides necessary, humane help to those in need, and that exists to serve those in need ... . These objectives seem worthwhile, and perhaps this volume will engage others in thinking outside the sociocultural box as well. (Andrew Nocita, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 62 (25), June, 2017)

Author Information

Bruce Cohen is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His books include Mental Health User Narratives: New Perspectives on Illness and Recovery, Being Cultural and Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health.

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