Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness

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, Psychiatric Hegemony is an uncompromising account of mental health ideology in neoliberal society.

Author: Bruce M. Z. Cohen
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 11/04/2020
Pages: 241
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.69lbs
Size: 8.27h x 5.83w x 0.55d
ISBN13: 9781349689798
ISBN10: 1349689793
BISAC Categories:
- Psychology | Clinical Psychology
- Social Science | Disease & Health Issues
- Social Science | Sociology | General

About the Author
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.