The Routledge International Handbook of Mad Studies - Paperback

by Peter Beresford (Editor), Jasna Russo (Editor)

By drawing broadly on international thinking and experience, this book offers a critical exploration of Mad Studies and advances its theory and practice.

Comprised of 34 chapters written by international leading experts, activists and academics, this handbook introduces and advances Mad Studies, as well as exploring resistance and criticism, and clarifying its history, ideas, what it is, and what it can offer. It presents examples of mad studies in action, covering initiatives that have been taken, their achievements and what can be learned from them. In addition to sharing research findings and evidence, the book offers examples and insights for advancing understandings of experiences of madness and distress from the perspectives of those who have (had) those experiences, and also explores ways of supporting people oppressed by conventional understandings and systems.

This book will be of interest to all scholars and students of Mad Studies, disability studies, sociology, socio- legal studies, mental health and medicine more generally.

Author Biography

Peter Beresford OBE is Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia, UK and Co-Chair of Shaping Our Lives, the national disabled people's and service users' organization and network.

Jasna Russo is a long-term activist in the international psychiatric survivor movement. She is Visiting Professor at Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Germany where she lectures in Research Methods as well as in Critical Diversity and Community Studies. Together with Angela Sweeney, Jasna Russo is a co-editor of Searching for a Rose Garden. Challenging Psychiatry, Fostering Mad Studies (2016).