Madness of Women

<p><em>Nominated for the 2012</em><em> Distinguished Publication Award of the Association for Women in Psychology!</em></p><br/><br/><p>Why are women more likely to be positioned or diagnosed as mad than men?</p><br/><br/><p>If madness is a social construction a gendered label as many feminist critics would argue how can we understand and explain women's prolonged misery and distress? In turn can we prevent or treat women's distress in a non-pathologising women centred way? <em>The Madness of Women</em> addresses these questions through a rigorous exploration of the myths and realities of women's madness.</p><br/><br/><p>Drawing on academic and clinical experience including case studies and in-depth interviews as well as on the now extensive critical literature in the field of mental health Jane Ussher presents a critical multifactorial analysis of women's madness that both addresses the notion that madness is a myth and yet acknowledges the reality and multiple causes of women's distress. Topics include: </p><br/><br/><ul><br/><br/><li>The genealogy of women's madness - incarceration of difficult or deviant women</li><br/><br/><li>Regulation through treatment</li><br/><br/><li>Deconstrucing depression PMS and borderline personality disorder</li><br/><br/><li>Madness as a reasonable response to objectification and sexual violence</li><br/><br/><li>Women's narratives of resistance</li></ul><br/><br/><p>This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of psychology gender studies sociology women's studies cultural studies counselling and nursing.</p>