By Any Other Name: An Exploration of the Academic Development of Torture and Its Links to the Military and Psychiatry

Constructing psychiatric certainty

“…In Canada, biological psychiatry, loosely defined as "the search for physiological, genetic and chemical bases" for psychiatric disorders (Kirk & Kutchins, 1992, p. 10), gained traction following the Second World War. As traumatized veterans and European refugees tried to recover their lives, and as militaries around the world took interest in the potential of the psy-disciplines (psychiatry, psychology, and psychiatric social work) to change and/or control human behaviour, these new frontiers created interest and investment to explore the potentials of psychiatry (Gold, 2016). However, the goals of changing and controlling human behaviour were not new and speak to the cultural origins of biological psychiatry, Constructing psychiatric certainty continued from page 13 which lie in ideologies of eugenics and mental hygiene.…”

Stories of Madness: Exploring Resistance, Conformity, Resiliency, Agency, and Disengagement in Mental Health Narratives

“…In the volume, Gold (2016) Indeed, much of the literature on organized activism in mental health focuses primarily on policy development and processes of engagement between affected groups and psychiatric agents (Montenegro, 2018;Pilgrim, 2005). Beyond direct forms of action and activism, Montenegro (2018) recently explored how service users disengaged and distanced themselves from the psy apparatus, which positioned themselves outside of the legibility, approachability, and descriptive ambitions of the mental health system.…”