"To go mad". The Generation of Feminist Criticism of Psychiatry: The Example of the Magazine Courage, 1978-1980

Abstract

Using the example of the feminist magazine Courage, the article shows how its participatory production process enabled apsy-feminist knowledge generation that also included women with psychiatric experience. The magazine makers combined the women's observations, perceptions and interpretations with visual representations and acanon of literature that extended far beyond the field of psychiatry (criticism). Instead of medical psychopathologies, the women of Courage implemented writing styles and visual languages, which emphasised the experience of mental suffering and alterity and related it to the social position of women. At the same time, Courage also presented alternative feminist treatments and therapies. The Courage's critique of psychiatry was characterised by amulti-perspective approach that removed the topic of "women in psychiatry" from the narrow field of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy and expanded it to include artistic, patient- and experience-oriented and socio-critical perspectives.