Amazing course!  Utterly transformative! I am now approaching my traumatized clients in an informed, respectful, anti-oppressive way.  Who could have thought that as practitioners, we could actually improve the world? (a typical evaluative comment by my trauma class students) Thank you so much, Bonnie, for helping me stretch beyond my comfort level (remark made this year by a current student) In every agency where I’ve worked since taking this course, psych survivors begin flocking to me. Nu? They quickly figure out that I won’t betray them and I actually have a sense of how to h ..read more

How does one bestow credibility and legitimacy on an area or a perspective when in the public eye, it has almost none? How does one turn antipsychiatry into a respected area of study and practice in the face of psychiatric hegemony? How does one attract more and more students to this and related fields of study? How might one at the same time begin healing the rifts between Antipsychiatry and Mad Studies?  And how does one ensure that what advances are made at one university spread to others? There are a number of different ways, many of which I have personally pursued over the years. On ..read more

So Bonnie, what have you done about electroshock this week? (critical question put to me approximately once a month for over twenty years by now deceased ECT survivor Sue Clarke) Pound. Pound. Pound. Adonoi, Mary Mother of God, Buddha, Ishtar, Inanna, Allah, anyone with ears that receive and a heart that quickens, make it stop. Pound. Pound. Pound. I swear on the holy Torah, I swear on the blessed cross, I swear on the winds that lift up and the rivers that tumble from the Creator’s bountiful lips, I will do anything. Do this, and lo, I will walk through the rest of my days humbly revering t ..read more

Whence arises the question above? If you have spent time in mainstream literature classes, alas, you will know. While the bias against mixing art (or what elite folk think of as “real art”) with the political has greatly diminished over the past fifty years, especially in the world of activism, it has not disappeared. Again and again literature students are taught that being political obstructs the production of good fiction. This notwithstanding, the truth of the matter is we have incredibly good fiction that is overtly political.  Take, for example, such powerful and richly imaginative ..read more

On April 12, 2017 the regulatory body for social workers and social service workers in Ontario--The Ontario College for Social Workers and Social Service Workers in Ontario--posted a news update on their website, announcing an imminent change to their regulations. The change in part provides "the College with the authority to request information and documents related to the Continuing Competence Program at any time". [bolding in original] It further notes, "Members are already required to make a declaration in the CCP [Continuing Competence Program] at their annual renewal of registration…This ..read more

The Other Mrs. Smith by Bonnie Burstow Inanna Publications, 2017 447 pages. In late October, my novel The Other Mrs. Smith—a novel centred on electroshock—was published. The fact that the release of such a novel was newsworthy became evident shortly after its launch. I was approached by CTV National News Channel for an interview (http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1270212) But days later, I was approached by Amy Pitt for an interview. What follows is the edited version of the second interview; I invite the reader to peruse and ponder it: AP: This novel traces the life experiences of one high ..read more

I am being put on medical leave by my college due to a number of long standing mental health issues…. I am . . . devastated….I have nowhere to go.” (private correspondence, October 30, 2017) I was declared “unfit to study” by my college over a year ago. It took the ground out from under me; and I doubt that I will ever get back my life. Dr. Burstow, how can they just do things like this to people? (private correspondence, November 6, 2016) These are excerpts from two of the many letters that I have received over the last couple of years from students who have left their respective universit ..read more

Eyes peer at me, then quickly look away. Because they are afraid. Because they sense the humiliation. Because they know not what else to do. Stretchers in front of me. Stretchers behind me. Some poor soul being dragged where none of us want to go. Who would have thought that a single shriek could fill the universe? (from Burstow, 2017—The Other Mrs. Smith; https://www.amazon.ca/Other-Mrs-Smith-Bonnie-Burstow/dp/1771334215/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508451818&sr=8-1&keywords=the+other+mrs.+smith In the midst of flagrant professional mispresentation of ECT, this article provides hard ..read more

On June 1, a landmark decision was handed down by Justice Paul Perell of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against the defendants the government of Ontario and two former Oak Ridge psychiatrists—Dr. Elliott Barker, who is hailed as the mastermind behind Oak Ridge’s therapy program, and Dr. Gary Maier—Barker’s successor. This suit (for damages) was launched by 31 of the men who had been “patients” (read: inmates) at Oak Ridge during the years 1966-1983. According to the ruling of the judge, three of the programs to which the “patients” were subjected constitute torture (see https://www.the ..read more

Over the last couple of years, I have written several articles intended to shed light on the term/phenomenon “antipsychiatry”—to name just a few, On Antipsychiatry (see http://bizomadness.blogspot.ca/2014/07/on-antipsychiatry.html), Antipsychiatry Revisited (see https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/10/antipsychiatry-revisited-toward-greater-clarity/), and On Fighting Institutional Psychiatry with the “Attrition Model” (see https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/07/attrition-model-psychiatry-abolition/). This is the next in the series. Questions addressed include: What exactly does “antipsychiatry” me ..read more