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ORCID
N/A
Access Type
Open Access Thesis
Document Type
thesis
Degree Program
History
Degree Type
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Year Degree Awarded
2014
Month Degree Awarded
May
Abstract
This paper examines the correspondence, manuscripts, and speeches of ex-mental patient activists. I chronicle the activities of the emergent psychiatric survivors movement from its beginnings in the early 1970’s focusing on the work of the Boston based activist, Judi Chamberlin (1944-2010). This paper examines how mental patients in post-war America began to organize in order to have their voices included in the process of their own recovery. I present Chamberlin’s experience as a mental patient as being representative of the “rootlessness” that many post-war women experienced. Chamberlin’s work as an ex-patient activist presented one aspect of the overall struggle on the part of mental patients to claim their place in a wider society. I also pay attention to interdisciplinary scholarly analyses of madness to investigate how discussion of the subject influenced ex-patient activists, as well as whether or not the ex-patients’ narrative reciprocally influenced the scholarly discussion about madness. In the final chapters, I also look at how the successes of this social movement ironically led to the prevalence of today’s diagnostic models of treatment that rely heavily on pharmacological methods and highly regimented evidence-based psychotherapies while still excluding patients’ voices. The voices of mental patients both in the asylum era and today have been excluded from the treatment process.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/5458666
First Advisor
Robert S. Cox
Second Advisor
John E. Higginson
Recommended Citation
Tamao, Shuko, "The Politics of Psychiatric Experience" (2014). Masters Theses. 49.
https://doi.org/10.7275/5458666
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/49
Included in
Alternative and Complementary Medicine Commons, American Studies Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Mental and Social Health Commons, Social History Commons, United States History Commons