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List of contents
Hansen & Charles, An Introduction to Women & Psychosis. Section 1: Overview. Charles, Chapter 1: Women and madness in context. Seeman, Chapter 2: Schizophrenia in women compared to men: Symptoms, lifecourse, treatment, and theories to help explain the difference. Ready, Chapter 3: In the dark zone. Section 2: Spiritual perspectives. Carlson, Chapter 4: Mystics, witches or hysterics? The therapeutic stakes when spirituality becomes a symptom. Esima, Chapter 5: Sick or gifted? - Discovering shamanic illness. Marino, Chapter 6: My monster, my self. Section 3: Clinical perspectives. Arenella, Chapter 7: A feminist psychoanalytic model for understanding dieting disordered eating, and trauma in psychosis.Hansen, Chapter 8: Snakes in the crib: Towards a psychological understanding of postpartum psychosis. Melker, Chapter 9: Sabina Spielrein and Frau M: Two cases of women’s psychosis through the lens of Jungian complex theory. Britz, Chapter 10: Transforming taboo. Poser, Chapter 11: Lucia. O’Loughlin, Queler & Marsh, Chapter 12: Faith: A woman interrupted. Section 4: Social perspectives. Hunter, Chapter 13: Psychiatric tyranny and social control: The power of diagnosis. Hornstein, Chapter 14: Did they die of "mental illness"? Confronting the lives and works of Iris Chang and Shulamith Firestone. Jones & Luhrmann, Chapter 15: At the margins of society, at the margins of the family: Women’s paths into and out of homelessness in India and the United States. Moreira, Chapter 16: Mourning and psychosis in transsexual women. Lampshire, Chapter 17: Being of sound mind. Section 5: Artistic & literary perspectives. Steinkoler, Chapter 18: Being and becoming text. DeVinney, Chapter 19: Writing psychosis, writing women. Knafo, Chapter 20: Persephone’s atelier: Women artists and psychosis.
Summary
This collection explores the relationship between womanhood and psychosis from a variety of perspectives including anthropological, spiritual, psychological, biological and social. Chapter themes include explorations of medieval mystics and witches, postpartum psychosis, cross-cultural homeless women, disordered eating, Jungian complex theory, art and literature, feminism, transsexual women, psychoanalysis, and gender differences in respect to what is commonly termed ‘schizophrenia’. Grounding this conversation in everyday life, personal accounts are offered by psychotherapists, traditional healers, and women with lived experience of psychosis.
