Radical Psychology
2006, Volume Five
The
Survivor’s Voice: Editorial Foreword
The current approach within mainstream psychology to understand, and
therefore to ‘treat’, mental distress is through a reliance on the
medical model. In many respects, psychology can be seen as the
handmaiden of psychiatry in the field of mental health with its
deference to psychiatric discourse, including its widespread use of the
DSM and its touting of psycho-tropic medications. Moreover, the
dominance of the medical model serves to silence disparate voices and
bar alternate discourses in mental health. For these reasons,
this special issue of Radical Psychology has opened a space for the
‘survivor’s voice’ to be heard and discussed by activists,
psychologists, people with experience using the mental health system as
well as interested others inside and outside of the academy. It
is our hope that this space will allow the survivors voice to emerge
from amongst the cacophony of medical terminology and will thus empower
those whose voices are rarely heard inside the academy and are too
often ignored inside the clinic. We the editors feel that
emphasizing survivor’s understandings is a form of consciousness
raising and that consciousness raising is an important step in the
pursuit of social justice and civil rights for psychiatric survivors.
The article “An Ethical Approach to Involuntary Psychiatric Assessment
and Treatment in Australia” by ‘Joel Michas’provides an analysis of his
personal experiences whilst outlining recommendations with respect to
the process of involuntary admission to inpatient wards, the
involvement of family and the prescribing of neuroleptic
medication. The articles by Brenda A. LeFrancois, entitled ‘‘They
will find us and infect our bodies’: The Views of Adolescent Inpatients
Taking Psychiatric Medication’, and by Rachel Liebert and Nicola Gavey,
entitled ‘‘They Took My Depression and Then Medicated Me into Madness’:
Co-Constructed Narratives of SSRI-Induced Suicidality’ detail the
experiences of psychotropic medication use. The article by Linda J.
Morrison, entitled ‘A Matter of Definition: Acknowledging
Consumer/Survivor Experiences through Narrative’, provides an account
of the ‘heroic survivor narrative’ and grassroots advocates' narratives
in relation to the experiences of activism within the mental health
system. Christopher Canning argues that psychiatric
survivor testimonials should be seen as emotionally charged,
politicized challenges to medicalized, scientistic knowledge in his
article ‘Psychiatric Survivor Testimonial and Embodiment’. In
an article entitled “ ‘Who Fancies to Have a Revolution Here?’ The Opal
Revisited (1851 - 1860)” Lauren J. Tenney combines participatory
action research with historical inquiry by encouraging
contemporary mental health activists to read the words of their
nineteenth century predecessors.
Some readers may find some of the articles provocative and challenging
not only to the status quo but also to their own constructions of the
mental health system whereas other readers may find some articles to
not be as radical as anticipated by the call for papers. It is
hoped that reactions to the articles will open a greater space for
dialogue with the view to allowing for an evolution of thought within
the circle of radical psychology. For these reasons, letters to
the editors regarding the articles in this issue are encouraged and
will be published in a later issue of the journal.
Brenda A. LeFrançois and Dan Aalbers
Acknowledgements:
We would also like to express our thanks to Andrew Phelps for serving
as an anonymous reviewer for some of the articles appearing in this
special issue.
We would also like to thank Dennis Fox for serving as our webmaster --
his skill and patience is greatly appreciated.