Barriers to Recovery from ‘Psychosis’: A Peer Investigation of Psychiatric Subjectivation

This book inaugurates the field of Mad Studies in the Indian subcontinent investigating the barriers to recovery from the perspective of "patients" and caregivers. Offering a radical critique of the mental health system, it questions why the phenomenon of recovery from serious mental health issues is not more widespread. Drawing from narratives of "patients", evidence from lived experiences around the globe and literature on recovery in psychiatry, mental health legislations and policies, it establishes the hitherto silenced voice of the "patient" as having testimonial viability, via an emancipatory scholarship. It highlights the repeated marginalization of "patients" and the identity prejudice they experience in day-to-day situations as a form of epistemic violence. The book examines the barriers to recovery through an interdisciplinary investigation, scrutinizing relationships between individuals and institutions at interpersonal, intersocial and global levels. The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, sociology, disability studies, Mad Studies, law and policy, cultural studies, mental health, medicine as well as general readers.

Table of Contents:
1. Realities and Representations 2. Who Speaks for Whom and Why it Matters 3. Among Peers: The Place Where One is ‘Home’ 4. Benign Arm of Psychiatry and Birth of the Psychiatric Subject 5. Making the Transient Permanent - How Law Disables ‘Recovery’ 6. from Subject to Agent: What it Takes to ‘Recover’ 7. Possible Futures and Removing Barriers

About the Author :
Prateeksha Sharma, psychotherapist-musicologist is the founder of Bright Side Family Counseling Center. Her counseling practice is informed both by her experiential perspectives and recovery research at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (Nalsar), Hyderbad. She works on interfaces between music, education, counseling, psychology and mental well-being among diverse demographics via advocacy, services, training and research.

Review :
‘This is a significant book. Combining first-hand experience as a "mental patient" with in-depth research, and sophisticated scholarship, Sharma offers a powerful challenge to the mental health establishment. Psychiatric diagnoses do not reflect reality, she argues, they create the idea that the distressed are mentally ill. Resulting from this diseasing of the distressed, is the erection of multiple barriers to recovery – interpersonal and institutional. In speaking sense to both the public and the professions – Sharma’s analysis should stir broad dialogue and debate. This is the kind of scholarly activism that carries the seeds of social change.’ --Kenneth J Gergen, Senior Research Professor, Swarthmore College, USA ‘This book is a must-read challenge to the dominance of colonizing approaches to madness and distress. Drawing on Global South lived experience and knowledge, it offers fresh insights for challenging a maddening world.’ --Peter Beresford OBE, Visiting Professor, University of East Anglia, UK ‘Prateeksha Sharma gives us the hope that recovery from vulnerabilities and mental illness is possible without expensive psychiatric dogmatism She makes it possible for the "patient" to reflect on the pain underneath the surface and how she/he can recover from the enduring struggles. I wish her the very best so that unadulterated joy can be ascertained with the thoughts of her book.’ --Anita Ghai, Professor, School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi ‘With the lyricism and timing of a musician turned interdisciplinary researcher, Sharma’s emancipatory scholarship draws us into deeper understandings of psychiatrisation and recovery. This book marks an important moment in the evolution of mad studies.’ --Bren LeFrançois, University Research Professor at Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada ‘Language is not innocent! Sharma gives an impressive and thought-provoking account on recovery from psychosis, challenging the languages of the psy´s. Reading this book and applying its ideas and concepts gives hope for a more socially just and inclusive society!’ --Ottar Ness, Professor of Counseling, Norwegian University of Science and Technology ‘Written against a backdrop of ‘diagnostic dominance’, this book brings an emancipatory perspective to understanding recovery. Sharma sheds light on the ways people build a life around a diagnosis, how recovery often remains embroiled in psychiatric thinking, and the workings of power in governing people who won’t comply.’ --China Mills, Senior Lecturer in Public Health, City, University of London