Theorising Critical Psychology in Psychiatric Practice: Si Voices Interrupting Pathology

Abstract

This paper is the record of a symposium at the ‘Geist Gege Genes' conference in July 2001 in Berlin. The conference was linked to the fifth Russell Tribunal on Human Rights in Psychiatry. Over the two days of hearings, witnesses testified to the abuse they had suffered at the hands of the psychiatric system and expert witnesses described how people had been coerced into ‘treatment', sometimes with horrifying results. One of the sponsors of ‘ Geist Gegen Genes' (The Mind Challenges Genes) was the UK­based grouping Psychology Politics Resistance, and another was the Discourse Unit. The symposium on ‘Critical Psychology: Psychiatric Pathologising as a Political Question' brought together different perspectives on the way that critical academics and activists in psychology may oppose the oppressive uses of psychology. Here it is an opportunity for theorising critical psychology in psychiatric practice; these are six voices interrupting pathology.