Women & Psychosis

Interrogating the relationship between women and psychosis from a variety of perspectives, this edited collection explores personal, literary, spiritual, psychological, biological, and psychodynamic approaches. The contributors reflect on medieval mystics and witches, postpartum psychosis, disordered eating, art and literature, feminism, and male/female differences in schizophrenia. Women with experience of psychosis, psychotherapists, and a shaman provide first-person accounts to give the book a personal grounding. Curated with the intent to expand the way we think about women and psychosis, the contributors to this collection recognize that "voices and visions" do not occur in a vacuum, but are experienced within, and are influenced by, particular socio-cultural contexts.

Marie Brown is clinical psychology doctoral candidate at Long Island University and co-founder of the Hearing Voices Network NYC. Marilyn Charles Marilyn Charles, PhD, is practicing psychoanalyst and staff psychologist at the Austen Riggs Center.

Chapter 1. Women and Madness in Context Chapter 2. Explicate or Relate: Recognizing and Differentiating Literary Madwomen Chapter 3. Stories Chapter 4. Snakes in the Crib: Psycho-Social Factors in Postpartum Psychosis Chapter 5. Disordered Eating and Disordered Thinking in Women: A Continuum in Objectification in Anorexia and Psychosis Chapter 6. Mystics, Witches or Hysterics? The Therapeutic Stakes When Spirituality Becomes a Symptom Chapter 7. From Sick to Gifted: Discovering Shamanic Illness Chapter 8. Psychosis in Women: A Perspective from Psychiatry Chapter 9. Schizophrenia in Women as Compared to Men: Theories to Help Explain the Difference