Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence

Bonnie Burstow's work on psychiatry from a feminist perspective gives a good basic analysis of feminist theory for newcomers, including thorough footnotes and bibliography. Dr.Burstow introduces her subject with a historical outline of the basic creation of psychiatry, a concept alien to early cultures which used midwives and what we would call homeopathic remedies. The Church plays a role in taking power away from women healers like midwives and she manages to make a link between this and the Inquisition of witches, long ago. She refers us the readers to works by author T. Szasz and others to continue with an analysis of psychiatry as it stands today. What follows is an entirely eye-opening and fresh perspective for laypeople or perhaps professional therapists who need to realign their values with their practise. In case you didn't know the dangers of today's psychiatric drugs, in view of long-term use and the uncertainty of why neuroleptics actually seem to work in the short-term, Bonnie Burstow goes over this and then goes on to suggest alternative methods of therapy which build on the traditional relationship between patient and therapist. Expanding on this essential relationship, much lauded in popular culture with the icons of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and the prerequisite couch analysis, Dr.Burstow book points out the dilemma of the power differential between patient and therapist. This original book, despite a slightly off-putting title, is a must-read for psychiatrists and therapists in the field and anyone whose been given a psychiatric diagnosis, or is just curious! Prerequisite: an open-mind.